A white noise app wouldn't work for me - I would be too distracted by the non-white noise noises I could still hear, even more distracted than i woul….

I actually can't listen to music and write poetry at the same time, but I do kind of think about the music I've been listening to when I write..

I think about the body kind of all the time, being as how I'm really uncomfortable in mine..

I'm always glad that other people are way smarter about my poems than I am..

I think that the moment we're living in offers the best opportunity we've had in a long time in that a lot of things having to do with identity polit….

I like having a phrase lying around to get poems started. It's like having a key..

There's no such thing as an animal too big too kill, AND we're cornered by such animals every day..

I learned to write with my desk in the living room, next to the TV. But mostly in my head, and I try to be able to do it under any circumstances..

That's a fairly Wordsworthian way to look at things! But yeah, actually - part of the poet's work, I think, is to maintain or reintroduce the imagina….

I do try to incorporate particular rhythmic and generally sonic motifs I discover in music as such, and if one thinks of language in a narrow sense, ….

Confessionalism relates to writers of color. I think confessional poetry is in its way very Catholic, capital C. One of the formative ideas of Confes….

I think that the casual reader and the lyric and confession are trickily tied up together. I mean often when I read my students' poems my first impul….

I was just thinking about how my grandparents, who raised me, would be considered "white trash," whatever that means - mostly for being racists, I'd ….

I think I cause a lot of headaches for editors - it's impossible to keep up with the ridiculous amount of changes I make..

I wanted to be a composer for a while, and for a while, and maybe still, I found writing music much easier than writing poetry. So maybe my brain cli….

I don't know that I find either aspect of Jesus more interesting than the other, although maybe I think about the God one more..

If I can quote myself, I explained whatever it is I'm doing once for No Tell Motel, and I still think it's the clearest I've ever been about this: "I….

People get anxious about dividing sorts of poetry, say Confessionalism from political poetry. But Confessionalism is very much an expression of racia….

I had/have a habit of sending books out before they're ready. And then I edit with almost absurd intensity. But I've done about a book a year..

I believe rhythmic sensibility is always a product and extension of language, defined broadly, among other things. But it is an immediate product and….

I just can't write and listen to music at the same time..