Joy is a part of my process. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that poetry, as a practice, necessitates a sense of joy. It's exhilarating to come into contact with the things we write into being. And a real sense of play and abandon – even when we are relying on hard-won technique, and even when the aim is deadly serious. How often do we get the excuse to stop, think, and then stop thinking altogether and try to listen to what sits behind our outside of our thoughts? Poets are lucky.

When I was young, my father was lord Of a small kingdom: a wife, a garden, Kids for whom his word was Word. It took years for my view to harden, To shrink him to human size.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance, Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice.

Lizzie Harris's debut collection, Stop Wanting, crafts images and lines of such arresting splendor that I am very often driven to joy at the feats of beauty and healing that language is capable of bringing into being.

Often it is a moment rather than an event that makes a poem.

Once I started writing all the time and interacting with poets, I made a conscious decision to identify myself as a poet. It's funny how much a single word can provide focus and direction. As soon as I claimed that identity, I started clearing more and more space for poetry in my life and applying poetic tools to other areas of my life. The world became a different place, and I witnessed it through different kinds of eyes.

If I call it pain, and try to touch it With my hands, my own life, It lies still and the music thins, A pulse felt for through garments.