There's no such thing as an animal too big too kill, AND we're cornered by such animals every day.

I believe rhythmic sensibility is always a product and extension of language, defined broadly, among other things. But it is an immediate product and extension - no time elapses between the exposure to language and the creation of rhythmic sensibility.

I do believe in Jesus as wholly God and wholly human, and I believe the human part was human.

I had/have a habit of sending books out before they're ready. And then I edit with almost absurd intensity. But I've done about a book a year.

I think that the casual reader and the lyric and confession are trickily tied up together. I mean often when I read my students' poems my first impulse is to say, "O, the subject of this pronoun, this 'I,' is whatever kid wrote this poem." The audience for lyric poems is "confessionalized" to some extent. And I think this audience tends to find long narrative poems, for instance, kind of bewildering.

I wanted to be a composer for a while, and for a while, and maybe still, I found writing music much easier than writing poetry. So maybe my brain clings to it.

I like having a phrase lying around to get poems started. It's like having a key.