“A lot of my poems either have historical sequences or other kinds of chronological grids where I'm locating myself in time. I like to feel oriented, and I like to orient the reader at the be...”

“I'm not a claustrophobe, but you don't need to be to feel claustrophobic inside an MRI. It's like being buried alive.”

“I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is easily stimulated.”

“But some nights, I must tell you, I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep. I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness. I sing a love song as well as I can, lost for a while in t...”