A good many of my poems over the years have alluded to or taken on the political. Stevens has a line in one of his essays: "Reality exerts pressure on the imagination." Inevitably what is omnipresent in the culture exerts its pressure on our imaginations to respond to it, even if indirectly. But in this case the backdrop of 9/11, coincident with the breakup of a marriage, the finding of new love, some kind of personal cataclysm... all of those were forces informing the poems in some way.

I make myself up from everything I am, or could be. For many years I was more desire than fact. When I stop becoming, that’s when I worry.

I’ve had it with all stingy-hearted sons of bitches. A heart is to be spent.

Bring to me, it said, continual proof / you've been alive.

I love what's left after love has been tested.

Better to be furious at one thing, become radiant with purpose. Better to love links and rhythms than all-embracing answers.

I will try to disappoint you better than anyone ever has.