I've always felt alone and isolated, and living on the West Coast, there's no poetry community out here, and if there is, it's really spread out - because it's LA, it's spread out.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and other mornings I feel like crap.

I love being part of poetry conversations. I love talking about what I've read.

Whether people like your work or not, but it's also based on a lot of other things - geography, who you happen to connect with and where they sit in that ladder - and all of that felt really isolating and disheartening to me when I figured it out.

There's so much stuff being written! Every year, how many books come out? I can't keep up, and I read a lot. It's amazing.

It took me awhile to not be ashamed to be a poet in the business environment, and to be a business person in the poet environment.

I question my own talent and ability to make creative work every single day.