I'm always glad that other people are way smarter about my poems than I am.

I learned to write with my desk in the living room, next to the TV. But mostly in my head, and I try to be able to do it under any circumstances.

I love to read long books. I enjoy experiencing that extension. But it's not something I feel comfortable with and not something I think I can gain comfort with by practice. It was a real struggle for me while writing memoir to get past three pages or so. In poems, I can write long poems. But length in prose: no.

Confessionalism relates to writers of color. I think confessional poetry is in its way very Catholic, capital C. One of the formative ideas of Confessionalism, beyond psychoanalysis, is a very actual fall from grace. And, at least in America, people of color never occupy that position of grace the way that white people do. So I think that in some very actual ways the confessional mode, strictly speaking, is not possible for non-white writers.

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

I think about the body kind of all the time, being as how I'm really uncomfortable in mine.

I think I cause a lot of headaches for editors - it's impossible to keep up with the ridiculous amount of changes I make.