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.

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

I think that the moment we're living in offers the best opportunity we've had in a long time in that a lot of things having to do with identity politics are being talked about in poems. The only problem there is that a lot of the time these are being talked about in confessional modes.

I actually can't listen to music and write poetry at the same time, but I do kind of think about the music I've been listening to when I write.

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.

That's a fairly Wordsworthian way to look at things! But yeah, actually - part of the poet's work, I think, is to maintain or reintroduce the imaginative capacity of their earlier self while nonetheless maturing. And I do think the more successful the poet is at this particular thing, the greater their achievement as a poet.

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.