WHAT?

Poems. Lots and lots of poems—formal, free-verse, all the stuff in the middle. A list of five things that don’t suck (almost every day). Reviews, talks, emails. Too many emails. But then poems again. Editing Cider Press Review. And when I’m not doing that, there’s water and being on and/or in it; teaching; reading obsessively; a specialty in English as a Second Language; a deep abiding love for Cary Grant; and keeping the greyhounds and the backyard bees content.

WHY?

The long version is that poems are where I live versions of my life—ones I’m actually living, ones I wish I could live, ones I’m really glad I’m not living, and all the messy in-between lives. That’s where all the interesting stuff is for me, I think, in that muck where the lines get blurry. Poems are where I explore and understand and interrogate. I ask a lot of questions. I use the word “if” a lot. I am much more comfortable with lack of knowing in a poem than in other parts of my life. I almost wrote “than in real life” there, but if poems aren’t real life, I don’t know what is.

The short version is that it’s sometimes the only way I know how to process things.

HOW?

Any way I can. Usually on my laptop, because I’m a speedy typist and I like to have instant access to the internet so I can find a quick piece of vocabulary or check etymology or procrastinate. The process is subject to change, though. I’ve been known to draft in long hand, with two spiral-bound notebooks, switching from one to the other with each new draft of a poem, reading from one and writing in the other. Occasionally a poem will come when I’m in bed, and I keep a little notebook on my nightstand for those times. If I’m really stuck, I’ll go for a walk or take a shower or do anything where I physically can’t write. Quiet helps.