Many of the poems weave autobiographical elements with fabular or mythic materials.

I prefer assonance and internal rhyme to end rhyme. I mean, the sonnet already looks like a box. Best not to get too boxed in, though.

My obsessions tend to cluster, so I often have families of poems in which only a couple of them make it to the book. It can be satisfying to banish poems to my "crappy poems" file.

I tend to employ braided narrative threads in the lyric, so often echoes (of phrases or images) will occur and will hit my ear so I can shape different resonances and shifts in tone.

I think the grotesque can inspire intimacy (it draws us in) as well as awe, like the cabinets of curiosities.

Many of the poets I most admire have a way of embodying their peculiar obsessions via landscape that can sometimes seem magical.

Learn to do everything with speed to be efficient and effective

The element of chance in basic research is overrated. Chance is a lady who smiles only upon those few who know how to make her smile.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Debbie Jacobs and a boy named Teddy Dennis.

I don't have a caustic sense of humor. What I find funny, that humor comes from a much gentler place.

The axle of the wheels of the chariot of Providence is Infinite Love, and Gracious Wisdom is the perpetual charioteer.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

You have to really be careful with what you see and read because you can't believe it all.

I think maybe L.A. or San Francisco could be rushed, but Sacramento is just laid back!

You know what, my faith is like this - when I die, I'm going to live with God forever and ever. But I believe He wants us to have a good life here on Earth.

I say, without characters, fame lives long.