Why I write:
I write to explore my inner and outer worlds – and to experience the pleasures and challenges of playing and wrestling with the sound and meaning of words and the musical rhythms of line. I am often moved to write by what is troubling, frightening or perplexing – as well as what delights, heals, gives hope and makes me laugh. Writing sometimes can help me deal with personal and external turmoil, enabling me to objectify, control (for the moment) and shape pain, chaos and confusion and make them into something on the page, outside myself, that strives to be powerful or beautiful or insightful. And if I and my readers are lucky, some poems will also reveal us more fully to ourselves.*
Connecting to others:
I want to write poems that speak clearly, are readily accessible and will resonate with readers and audiences, affecting them emotionally and intellectually and pleasing them aesthetically. What I find when I write – the light and the dark, the unexpected and fresh perspectives on the familiar – I want to bring to others, so that they may, for a time, join me on this journey, while they continue to pursue their own.*
