And I Should Mention The

I Think My Work Has To Do With A Sense That We Are Attempting, All The Time, To Create A Logical, Rational Path Through The Day. To The Left And Right There Are An Amazing Set Of Distractions That We Usually Can't Afford To Follow. But The Poet Is Willing To Stop Anywhere.

I Can Hear The Library Humming In The Night, A Choir Of Authors Murmuring Inside Their Books Along The Unlit, Alphabetical Shelves, Giovanni Pontano Next To Pope, Dumas Next To His Son, Each One Stitched Into His Own Private Coat, Together Forming A Low, Gigantic Chord Of Language.

As Soon As I Start To Write I'm Very Aware, I'm Trying To Be Aware That A Reader Just Might Well Pick Up This Poem, A Stranger. So When I'm Writing - And I Think That This Is Important For All Writers - I'm Trying To Be A Writer And A Reader Back And Forth. I Write Two Lines Or Three Lines. I Will Immediately Stop And Turn Into A Reader Instead Of A Writer, And I'll Read Those Lines As If I Had Never Seen Them Before And As If I Had Never Written Them.

So Many Names, There Is Barely Room On The Walls Of The Heart.

I Think Clarity Is The Real Risk In Poetry Because You Are Exposed. You're Out In The Open Field. You're Actually Saying Things That Are Comprehensible, And It's Easy To Criticize Something You Can Understand.