1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? Exit Theater didn't change my life, but it did as give me an excuse to rethink my process, as I could look back and see what it took to make a book, how to have a healthier and more rigorous practice toward that making, and what the limitations and possibilities of poetry are. The Unreal City takes up many of the same thematic and formal concerns, but expands on and pushes into them further.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction? I took a few classes with the poet Diane Wakoski in undergrad. I've been writing poetry ever since.
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? Wasted work, thinking, notes, outlining, lost dreams, emails to self, written-down fragments of dreams and insights in the middle of the night—at some point it all becomes unbearable and I put down a terrible draft, then add and slash and revise dozens of times. Often the initial shape or impulse is recognizable, but it's become something entirely other.
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? It depends on the poem and the project, but I like the way poems can support each other, so I gravitate toward unity.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? I do not enjoy giving readings but they are an opportunity to enact the work in a different way, so I do them.
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? The questions are different for everyone. For me, some are: Why should anyone care about this? Is it worth a reader's time? What is the work doing in relation to the history of the form, and what does it contribute? What are the ethics of its formal qualities and of conveying this subject in this way? What might it do in the mind of a reader and what might that do in the world?
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be? Art, as it is received (or not) in the public, reflects the culture that receives it at least as much as the artist who made it. A writer's job is to make work that is true to them and their time—to follow their desires and instincts, to push into the hidden and uncomfortable or taboo—and then to let work be in the world, with others, to live its own life. What exactly the work should be or why you should make it—no one can tell you what to do or who to be.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? Essential.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? "None of the books I've written were published in the order I wrote them." - Anselm Berrigan
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to sound installation to performance to libretto)? What do you see as the appeal? Not easy, but fun.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? I do my best writing in the morning, and since I work full time, I usually write for two hours before work, starting at 6 a.m. When I can't sleep, I write at night.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? I read.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? I grew up many places, so there is no one home in my life. But sometimes the fragrance of someone I love will trigger a feeling like "home."
14 - 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? Mostly books, but yes, paintings, videos and films, journalism, music, memories and experiences, meditation—it's all available.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? There are too many to count here—in some sense everything I read is important for it.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? I would like to write full time.
17 - 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? For a long time I wanted to be a journalist in environment or nat sec. I'd also have liked to have been a filmmaker or a painter.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? I struggled with perspective in visual art, and reading and writing came naturally to me.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Truly great? Javier Marias' Your Face Tommorrow. Jia Zhangke's Ash Is Purest White.
20 - What are you currently working on? A new book of variations
on Catullus' poems, another group of new poems, and, for once, some fiction.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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