Noises and smells, those can bring back powerful memories. I remember when I was going to school one Fourth of July, and there were a lot of firework….

There's something immediate about the experience of reading a poem. It makes sense in my own mind, but I'm trying to figure out a way to articulate i….

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning..

As human beings, we have the blessing and the curse that we're able to adapt to almost anything. No matter how extreme the circumstances you're in, t….

Writing was always an aspiration, but I'd kept it a secret even from myself..

I can't envision an honest war novel that left war in a positive light..

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centr….

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true..

Freedom is not the same as lack of accountability..

I've been writing poems and stories since I was about 13..

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed..

I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable..

All pain is the same. Only the details are different..

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of b….

The details of the world in which we live are always secondary to the fact that we must live in them..

Michael Koryta's THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is an absolutely thrilling read. I read most of it with my breath held, occasionally exhaling to ask myself, ….

In a lot of ways, the task at hand for any poem is to approach something that defies exactness or definition with a kind of exactness or precision..

You want to fall, that's all. You think it can't go on like that. It's as if your life is a perch on the edge of a cliff and going forward seems impo….

It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the wa….

I wanted something that I could look back on and say, yes, you were fighting too, you burned to be alive, and whatever failure or accident of nature ….

I think a lot of the guys I know and a lot of people I've talked to, what they want is very often what most people want, a kind of simple life, a liv….