One of the things I'm constantly telling my students is that they're never going to write a poem everyone gets, or if they do, they've failed. They should leave someone behind every time.

I enjoy working on a number of projects - books - at once.

Revision is a good impulse to have.

I turned to human suffering because - this may sound odd - animal suffering is more difficult for me to deal with.

I always revise when I publish in a book. So versions in magazines are sometimes slightly different.

I figure I write for people who are intelligent enough to do some labor. Lazy readers are not my ideal readers.

I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find their perfect home.