What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
The dense, terse nature of poetry – the details of it, full of pulp and flesh and strained of the filler and water, it is life at its most condensed, shocking level. There’s no politeness in poetry or development – it’s nitty-gritty all the way through. It’s all icing, tart, cream, orgasm, nightmare. To me, it’s always the richest parts of every experience, so reading poetry is like living the best and worst of life in a tiny little box. I think that’s why knowing a lot of poets, it’s an interesting experience because what we have in common is a very microscopic engagement with the world. We are not hanging back in the shallow end. We are in deep, experiencing, swallowing the chlorine water that reminds of us the water fountain in second grade and that boy who watched you drink and you realized you were physically desired. We are always in the present and the past, in the details and the imagination.
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