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 don't write or think too much about the word "salvation." I might; I probably should. We are such needy creatures, needing to be saved, to feel we are saved or might be, however we define ourselves, however we define that word.

If I'm excited by something bodily, and curious about it, I generally want to delve into it and explore it with poetry. That's the way I ordinarily watch the world around me.

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.

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.

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.

I'm primarily a poet, so I'd have to say in my case I'd investigate the mystery in poetry in a different way than prose might investigate it, in a way that includes the power of the music of language and maybe more imaginatively in poetry, but I don't really know about better or worse. I guess it depends on the writer.