I approach writing a poem in a much different state than when I am writing prose. It's almost as if I were working in a different language when I'm writing poetry. The words - what they are and what they can become - the possibilities of the words are vastly expanded for me when I'm writing a poem.

The poem is a process, a way for me to discover questions, to ask them clearly or to discover the results of certain suppositions. Suppositions are a form of questioning.

My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it.

Ordering is very important with essays, even if a reader doesn't read the essays or the poems in order through the book...

People sometimes think that defining a term is pedantic and useless, but terms need to be defined if they're going to be discussed, even if the terms are only defined for a single conversation. Those involved in the conversation need to know how the terms are being used.

As far as I can tell, writing the essays didn't change the way I wrote poetry. Although the essays contain scattered passages that might be called lyrical, they often contain closed statements of what is only suggested in the poetry.

I have thought for many years that the audience any creative writer imagines has a great effect on what gets written.