EXCERPT FROM THE INTERVIEW

After college, I left a job as a magazine editor to pursue poetry, and I was asked by my father “Why would you quit a writing position to write?” In answering, I invoked Thelonius Monk: from sonic chance and chaos, the pianist created order and form. With craggy runs and jabs, he made music. I like to think I try to find order in the current world chaos by working at the precise use of language. Poems are processes for understanding–understanding journeys, in particular. Our journeys may lead to discovery, or to nowhere, but that continuing pursuit is my hope for the American way of life.