2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’m not sure I ever set out to be a writer in the first place, in the sense that I would have selected between genres. In my second semester of college I took a comparative literature course in which we studied the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. I remember reading his poem “Seaward” in translation and thinking it’s magic that language can move like this; it made sense to me intuitively, and by necessity at the time I wanted to foster that intuition. So it didn’t feel like a choice, more a compulsion.
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?
Starting a project seems easy enough to me—until I inevitably realize that the framework of a “project” has led to several false starts. Now I’m trying less to think about a poem in sequence and more about what’s immediately on the page. I revise slowly, making small changes until finally cutting more substantial portions of a poem. I fill up notebooks with asides and scribbles in the meantime.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I know some poets have strong feelings about readings. I attend far more readings than I give. I love getting dinner with writers after readings.
I feel more neutral, I guess. I enjoy readings when they’re good, and I enjoy giving readings when I can perform enthusiastically. It’s always useful to read your poems aloud, of course, to hear in a different context how a poem moves. In that sense giving a bad reading is also very useful.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Oh, there are many ways to answer this. Let me share a goofy, revealing anecdote. I remember working on my MFA thesis at Boston University, advised by Dan Chiasson. I was twenty-one and a little too self-serious, a common problem for writers starting out, as Berryman described: a way to propel oneself into work that is thankless by some measures. Dan complimented the work, but then reflecting on the temperament of the poems (and my temperament in the workshop), he said something like, “in the spirit of friendship, my best advice for you is to chill out.”
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Writing criticism is a way to keep myself busy when I’m not writing poetry. I do love writing about poems and poets—as a practice of attempting precise formal observation—though I consider myself a poet above all else. This has made it very easy to switch between genres.
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?
Because I have a young daughter, my day starts early; I try to get started at least a few hours before she’s out of bed. I only write poems in the early morning. Prose is for the afternoon. I wouldn’t say I keep a particular routine, though: between teaching, my spouse’s academic schedule, my daughter’s various dates and activities, I write when there’s time. And I’m very grateful to Tanja for building into her own schedule time for me to focus on poetry.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Poems come in bursts: I write a lot over a short period of time, then spend several months revising. This is how it’s always been for me, so I trust that, at some point in the future, I’ll have another intense phase of writing. In the between periods, I write criticism and, of course, I teach: it’s hard to overstate how much teaching has impacted my work, guiding these periods of silence. I’ve had brilliant students, and our conversations challenge and reinforce what I love about poetry.
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?
Oh, there’s so much. I try to disappear a little bit when it comes to taste. I have a large collection of music and love going deep into particular labels and catalogues. I’m listening to everything Billie Holiday right now. Also, in Who Follow the Gleam, there are a few poems indebted to particular films. I Married a Witch from 1942, one of my favorites, and two of Herzog’s, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and a made-for-tv documentary, Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices, about the sixteenth-century Italian composer. I’m lucky enough to be married to a brilliant film and television scholar, and luckier still that we have very different preferences.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Finish Twin Peaks. Fall asleep in the Cologne Cathedral. Ride a horse.
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?
I come from a family of landscapers and arborists on Long Island. My siblings and cousins all worked (or still work) in the trade. It’s hard to imagine a life without poetry where I didn’t end up spraying pesticides on boxwoods. I would have lost my job by now though. I did it for a few summers and couldn’t quite keep up with the pace. I was always distracted.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
After her death, I read Ellen Bryant
Voigt’s Kyrie, which is a provocative, formally complicated book of
sonnets that I will revisit.
The last film I remember truly loving was The Haunting from 1963 – the
famous adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve finished a second manuscript of poems. I’m always working on reviews. I have a few essays kicking around. I’m translating into English some poems by Friedrich Hölderlin. I’m learning German with my daughter. I’m trying to figure out if I have hobbies.
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