EXCERPT FROM THE INTERVIEW

I grew up hearing poetry recited by my mother, a child afloat in an ocean of words! I learned, swimming in this word-flood, that poetry was as real as breath, sustaining as a life-raft. Poetry became the center of my life, its living voice flowing into all the other voices: a conversation with all poets who ever drew breath. I first thought of the Renga as the form for CROSSING STATE LINES, precisely for this reason. The ancient Japanese “linked verse” form celebrates this urgent talking-to-each-other, the exhilaration of collaboration. The Renga is a fluid vessel- and it’s traveling fast: like haiku written in a speed boat!