People get anxious about dividing sorts of poetry, say Confessionalism from political poetry. But Confessionalism is very much an expression of racial privilege and of class privilege. I don't think it's always a blind expression of these privileges but it does have its genesis in them, in the politics of them.

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.

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

I don't know that I find either aspect of Jesus more interesting than the other, although maybe I think about the God one more.

If I can quote myself, I explained whatever it is I'm doing once for No Tell Motel, and I still think it's the clearest I've ever been about this: "I don't write free verse poems - mostly because I can't. But I am interested in the musical effects achievable with free verse."

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.