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When I began, poetry was very academic. You published little pamphlets from fancy presses. It was rather... chaste. There wasn't much public reading. Then there was poetry and jazz, which I don't think worked, though I love jazz.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died, and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion, but in fact, what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

I was really drawn to spoken-word style poetry. I loved the rhythms, and for some reason, I was just drawn to this poetry as a way of expressing my feelings, because I didn't have any other outlet.

The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.

Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way.

I started writing poetry in high school because I wanted desperately to write, but somehow, writing stories didn't appeal to me, and I loved the flow and the feel and sense of poetry, especially that of what one might call formal verse.

I love poetry; it's my primary literary interest, and I suppose the kind of reading you do when you are reading poems - close reading - can carry over into how you read other things.

I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.