How does a poem begin?
It begins with one phrase—a weirdly described image or meaningful declaration or simple arrangement of words—that I’ve never read anywhere else before. It has to startle me, has to feel crisp, clear, and new. That often takes writing dozens of lines that end up getting tossed, though every once in a while, the good line comes first. Then begins the long, stupid struggle to do anything with it.
How important is music to your poetry?
It feels crucial, though I wonder if others think of my poems as musical. I absolutely compose by ear. The arrangement of the poem on the page matters too, but the lines have to flow right; they need a rhythm and pacing to them first. The shape of the poem is secondary to the way it sounds. I have a feeling the same is true for a ton of poets. Maybe we all have the same obsessive compulsion towards music. It’s just that our instrument is language.
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
There are several. So many. Maybe every poet changes the way I think about writing. Actually, that feels perfectly correct. Every single poet I read changes the way I think about writing. But if you mean the big list that helped make my work whatever it seems to be, it includes O’Hara and Ashbery—who were my entry points into poetry when I began writing it in earnest in college—H.D., Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Lucille Clifton, James Tate, Mary Ruefle, Dean Young, Ross Gay, and Wallace Stevens. I’m tempted to add more here than that even, but I’ll stop by saying at least one chamber of my heart belongs to David Berman’s one and only book Actual Air.
How do you know when a poem is finished?
When the ending feels like a surprise to me. When the beginning feels like a surprise to me. When all the lines in-between have a kind of jangly music, a varied texture that keeps me from getting bored or glossing them over.
What are you working on?
I’m working on a fourth collection of poetry and am just about finished with it, I think. It’s called English as a Second Language and Other Poems (or The Usual Entertainment). After several books with short titles, I decided to go long on this one. We’ll see if anyone wants to publish it soon enough. I hope so. It took a lot of work on very little sleep. Of course, that makes me worry it’s an incoherent mess, but I’ve had the very best time of my writing life putting it together.
