“Sometimes I can make the ending more forceful by stressing internal rhyme, but it really depends on the content of the poem. There is no magic formula, and it can take hours of head-banging. Afterwards, if I’m pleased with the result, I go through a period of elation. But it doesn’t last—the letdown is not knowing where the next poem is coming from.” 

“I enjoyed pouring my feelings and thoughts directly into 'you,' erasing the line between reader and author. But perhaps the truer reason why I wrote the story in second person is so I wouldn’t have to write it in first. By convention, this would be a first-person narrative, and originally that’s what it was; but then it read like a personal narrative, oozing narcissism. I, I, I. There’s enough narcissism in the world without me adding to it.” 

“I think it’s hardest to write when one is too close to things. More often than not it seems that the mental, creative context for writing is created by being able to step back from life. I often feel, as I’ve heard others say too, that the plain old every day is just right in your face, all the time.”

“She told me, in effect, to write like I was from Henry County, where we are both from, and that the best part of the poems I was sharing with her had a colloquial resonance to which I should try to stay true.” 

“If there are inherent parts of our characters or sensibilities, writing poems is just one of the important aspects of mine. It’s just part of who I am.”

“A brain scan can tell you what your brain looks like when you are in love, but it can’t tell you why that love matters to you. Maybe you can chemically explain the sensation, but that doesn’t satisfy you when you’re going to the ends of the earth for that love. A story can do that.”

If you’re getting ready to run a marathon, you’re going to have to train your body, muscles, and mind to keep them in peak shape. Same with writing

"Chiefly, creativity takes initiative and endurance, so it’s best to choose one passion and focus for a while. A juggler may never drop a ball, but fatigue is inevitable."

"It was one of those nights when I wanted to write, but nothing seemed to come. That night I grabbed Ginsberg’s Kaddish from my poetry shelf, and it was the poem for his mother Naomi that enlightened me to start writing about my own."

"I spend the majority of my free time in a dimly lit room making up stories about ornery men and heartbroken women and not-quite-empty woods while my Labrador retriever keeps my feet warm and worries that I don’t get out enough."

"All writing is tension, and it’s harder to find tension when you’re happy. But I enjoy challenging that cliché. I get tired very quickly of poetry that’s all broken. I want poetry about being whole."

"But whether in physics, in nature, in heavy metal music--heck, even in love and romance--there is always the fire of life behind death."

"I know all writers say this, but I don’t ever remember not loving writing. If I think back to elementary school, I can remember always looking forward to my book reports or to practicing writing letters."

 “That’s essentially what we spend our entire lives doing; trying to effectively communicate with other human beings. That’s the main reason people need nearly two decades of schooling—we’re defined by how well we communicate.”

 “We flirt on dates as if we’re in a romantic comedy, and we know it’s working because we’ve seen those same reactions, that smile and the arched eyebrow, on TV. We’ve learned how to be people from actors playing people. We act like actors.”

“A good story has the heart of a rose, the sweep of a Monarch butterfly, the smell of a sweaty horse, the song of a highway and a fast car.”

“You need to be a picker and a chooser, a shaper and a crafter. You need to decide what is best for your story, best for your reader—what’s most true to the vision you have for your characters, your emotional arc, your plot.”

“The story usually decides where to end. My favorite short story endings leave the reader with a punch to the gut, often ending just on the cusp of resolution.”

 “What I’ve come to realize in recent years is that success as a writer comes at least as much from perseverance, even in the face of discouragement, or rejection, as from any innate talent you might have.”

“I think of poetry as a pocket of breath in an avalanche. I’m compelled by the possibility of making a world, even if it’s a small island world based in the North Atlantic of my imagination.”