"Stop Already" is a fairly new poem in a group that was just published by Feminist Studies, which is why I sent them to you.

I have a muse who's very powerful, but I'm still a hopeless deadbeat of a poet.

I'm surrounded by men, and the muse is complaining that I have neglected her.

I have some weak poems in that new collection, which is why I'm not ready to send the collection out yet.

I don't like crows. In the poem "C," crows are predatory, killing other birds and so forth. But in my morning walks, there were always crows, particularly at certain times of the year. And they're very aggressive, very visible and loud. They're not at all likable, but they have to be dealt with. They are part of the picture, the art in the morning. You cannot deny their reality.

Breath and brevity are sisters; the long-winded is an enemy who muffles your heartbeat.

"I want to be always happy," Maxine Hong Kingston announces . But, as this interview makes clear, for me, it was the desire to write poetry that kept me discontented, if not depressed and unhappy, through what many casual biographers have characterized as successful and productive decades.