Publishers have in-house editors, but I hire my own before I submit the work to publishers. They appreciate it and I feel more confident about the ma….

I enjoy working on a number of projects - books - at once..

Human suffering is articulated in language; communication is how we seek help, consolation, etc..

I like to move around in the landscape between poetry and prose, between the lyrical and the narrative..

I tend to overuse the word "project" only because "book" is terrifying while I'm still in the middle of something. A project can fail. I don't want a….

I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find th….

Revision is a good impulse to have..

I pay editors. I never ask friends or colleagues to work for free..

I figure I write for people who are intelligent enough to do some labor. Lazy readers are not my ideal readers..

One of the things I'm constantly telling my students is that they're never going to write a poem everyone gets, or if they do, they've failed. They s….

I turned to human suffering because - this may sound odd - animal suffering is more difficult for me to deal with..

I always revise when I publish in a book. So versions in magazines are sometimes slightly different..

Matt Mason must be declared the poet laureate of the Midwest! No other native son celebrates the overlooked America, its unsung citizens (from the an….