1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Notification from University of Iowa Press about Small Boat winning the Iowa Poetry Prize was a giant thrill. I remember the call well. It was a real boost, but it didn’t change my life. I was writing a lot and I kept writing a lot. I’m not sure I know how my more recent work differs from earlier work, but I have more faith in the process, the constant and slow and necessary process of learning what a poem wants to teach me.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
As a kid I wrote wacky stories, but now more and more I feel suspicious of fiction, at least mainstream fiction that tells a story. There are always many stories, so telling one story feels limited to me. I guess I just don’t think in stories. Fiction writing (and even fiction reading) is just not in my nature though I’ve written a few stories over the years. Some nonfiction interests me, especially good memoirs of interesting lives written self-consciously and well. I occasionally write an essay.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I make notes all the time. Once a week I study my notes and gather the notes that might want to be in a poem. I move the notes around. I change and change and change them. First drafts go through twenty of more drafts over a period of days, weeks, months, sometimes years. Most final drafts look nothing like first drafts.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
A poem begins with a collection of notes. Depending on how long I collect for, the poem could be short or long. There’s a bit of arbitrariness to this, but I’ve come to mostly trust when a poem is done.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I don’t love doing readings. I’m not a public person. But once the reading gets underway I can let the poems do their work. I like knowing there’s an audience, something you never know when you are writing.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I have lots of ongoing questions! What can poetry do? How can we include everything? How do we live with mortality? What’s our relationship with nature? With consciousness? How does art help us live? Why do people want meaning and sense and reasons and understanding when that’s not what the world has to offer us? What does it “mean” to love? What is the self? What do dreams tell us? What is my duty to the world? What can we do with our moods? How do we account for cruelty and the suffering of others? Why do I love and need light so badly? How do we preserve the goodness of children? What’s most important about education? How do short poems work differently than long poems? How can I best live?
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Writing can also be about listening to multiplicity, ambiguities, diversities, inclusivity. Putting this thing next to this thing can be socially, politically, morally useful. We need art to help us think differently.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I like feedback.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I once did a weekend workshop with Russell Edson and he prescribed more time for writing. More and more and more time.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
My sweet husband brings me my coffee in bed and I stay in bed and read and write for a couple of hours to start my day. When I was teaching, this meant starting around 5 am. This is the best part of my day. On a good day, I spend at least a few more hours in the morning or after lunch or in the evening doing more reading and writing time. Reading and writing always go together. Walking is also vital.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I’m lucky. I don’t get stalled. I can always turn to my journal notes.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Woodsmoke.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Books, the woods, the pond, fields, music, visual arts, dreams, my dog, my friends, my family, anything.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Books that have been most influential: William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, Van Gogh’s letters, John Ashbery’s Flow Chart, everything by Virginia Woolf.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I just want to keep living and writing, see some new places, think some new thoughts, take some new walks.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I’d love to be a painter. I’m finally letting myself try painting.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I need to write because I get so easily overwhelmed by the largeness, wonderousness, and horribleness of the world. I need to write to process and to cope.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
A few that come to mind: Knausgaard’s My Struggle (what memoir can do), Ingeborg Bachmann stories (what fiction can do), the film, Malick’s Tree of Life.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m working to put together a new book composed of three long poems, an accumulation of work from the last five years or so.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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