I prefer poems that occupy an imaginative sphere. When I lived in Cincinnati, I was occasionally referred to as an "Ohio Poet;" this made me uneasy, ….

When asked what I'd be if I weren't a writer, I'm tempted to respond with one of father's favorite phrases, one I despised while growing up: "I hate ….

I am like a table that eats its own legs off because it’s fallen in love with the floor..

I like it when poems are challenging, when they concern matters important and personal to the author..

It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creati….

New York is one of those places people tend to derive a sense of identity from - as if, were to you to remove them from the City, they'd turn limp an….

My day does not truly begin until I've acquired and consumed a 32-ounce Big Gulp of diet coke from 7-Eleven. It's the Big Gulp that's important, not ….

I find the elitism and blatant provincialism of many (Manhattan-based) New Yorkers unattractive. Just as place can be an identity crutch that helps a….

Some poems take two to three years to finish. Rarely, a poem will arrive whole. It's nice when that happens. However, process has become so grueling ….

I place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard work..

I encourage my students to be honest in their assessment of both the published work we read and the work of their classmates. I think there's always ….

The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't follow it. You'd have to have a pretty fantast….

I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that does something positiv….

One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer..

I love teaching poetry writing. Students come into the class thinking poetry has to be one way, then leave having created pieces that are wholly orig….

Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to drama….

One of the reasons poetry is such an amazing genre to work with is because it constantly reinvents itself and re-negotiates its terms with the reader..

The fiction writer has a lot of balls to juggle. Setting, pacing, dialogue, and so on. And let's not forget: plot. That was always a hard one for me.….

I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many poetry readings, p….

Different drinks have different metaphorical weight. Wine's heady, gin is poisonous, vodka's cold, and beer is plain boring. In real life, I'm a big ….

I admire the poetic relationship to place as enacted in Wallace Stevens' poems; his poetics strikes me as an argument against the restraints of reali….