My sense of the poet is classical - the poet is one who makes poems. In each book, I develop and repeat certain general themes - time, place, memory,…

- Lawrence Joseph

Is there an aesthetic "fit" in my work between God and the world? The "I' in my poems has from the beginning identified himself as Catholic, and my b…

- Lawrence Joseph

Do I address issues of the spirit, of the soul, in my work? Yes, definitely. As for being a Catholic poet, I was born in, and into, Catholicism - Eas…

- Lawrence Joseph

The violence inherent in our systems and structures of power is a part of who we are - our thoughts, sensibilities, imaginations, language. We live i…

- Lawrence Joseph

The poet casts an eye on what is horrendous, but his truest life is in what sustains, restores, heals. Love, the act of loving, beauty, are first, fu…

- Lawrence Joseph

The poet resists the pressures of reality, including the pressures of violence, in making, in forming, the poem. The tension is in the resistance - t…

- Lawrence Joseph

I've always believed that poetry must speak of realities as least as complicated as those spoken of in prose. I've read books of poems, even single p…

- Lawrence Joseph

External realities - worlds of politics, economics, law, war, interpersonal and social relations - are part of prose fiction. Fiction also includes t…

- Lawrence Joseph