Describe your writing process. Where does a poem begin for you? How do you know when it's done?
My process is pretty haphazard, and much of it involves avoiding writing poems by doing anything but that; vacuuming, cooking, cleaning, organizing, reading, exercising, even grading papers. But when it comes down to it I feel pretty certain that poems have to start with sound and words, rather than 'ideas.' I think if you, well, if I, start with ideas, the idea crowds out the potential of the language in order to make itself heard. Once I have some words and sounds I write them down, and I move them around till I have something. Occasionally I get lucky and a line or part of one will just sort of appear in my head, and then I know I have to chase after it or it will evaporate. In the latter case, writing the poem comes a little easier; the former can take months to sort out, the latter a matter of days or even hours. I write everything by hand till I have a workable draft I wouldn't be embarrassed to let a close friend who is interested see, and only then does it go onto the computer, though I find that once it does get on the screen it can change drastically.
I know a poem's done if I can't stand to deal with it anymore.
Who has influenced your work? What inspires you to write?
In terms of influences, some contemporary Irish poets, like Longley and Montague, are among my favorites to read and I would love to call them influences. Reading Wallace Stevens has had an enormous impact on how I think about poetry, and writing. I was lucky enough to be taught by some great poets like Eric Pankey, Peter Klappert, Sally Keith, Susan Tichy and Jennifer Atkinson.
As for what inspires me to write? The blank page, sometimes. I'm not sure I believe in "inspiration" nearly as much as I believe in being consciously aware of language all the time, of obsessing over words, and of working hard to make the words reveal something. Working hard is, frankly, certainly the most important part.
Why poetry and not prose? Or do you write both?
I write both, and really enjoy writing fiction; that tends to be more fun than writing poetry, which is a sort of "sweating blood" process. Fiction I can just let go, lower my standards, and generally goof off. Why poetry? it goes back to seeing Michael Longley read when I was a freshman in college, having messed about with poetry mostly as a way to try to impress girls, and finding myself thinking "I want to do that for real."
How long have you been writing?
I guess since I was eleven, in a 6th grade class, I simply started writing a story rather than taking notes on Earth Science or whatever that class was called. I started trying out poetry when I was fifteen, and I got serious about it around eighteen. So, 21 years, 17 years, or 14 years, depending on which answer matters.
For you, what's the most important part of a poem?
I don't know if it's possible to isolate it into one "part" but to me the most important aspect of any poem is whether or not it's beautiful. I have this sense that "beauty" is something we are, in contemporary poetry, distrustful of, wary of, busy keeping at arm's length and sort of admiring sidelong, slyly, without admitting it. So I greatly admire poetry that is beautiful in some way, but I don't know that I can isolate that into one "part" of a poem. Saying "I know it when I see it" is a pretty facile answer, but it could be located in many parts; tone, voice, rhythm, imagery, sound, form, meter, any of these and more. It can be strange or familiar, new or old, challenging or comforting, I just want it to be beautiful.
Have you encountered resources or books on the craft of writing poems that have been especially valuable to you?
Wallace Stevens's notebooks, letters, and lectures have been enormously - well I don't think I can say helpful, but important - in thinking about the writing of poems for me. Nothing beats great teachers and I had plenty of those, as mentioned above. As for a specific book about poetry, Paul Fussell's Poetic Meter and Poetic Form is my favorite resource on form, and I keep it handy.
Besides writing, what other interests do you pursue?
I love to cook and do most of the cooking at home; my more ambitious cooking tend to be classic French recipes. I read a great deal, not just poetry, but a lot of fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and comic books. Love to play complicated narrative games with friends. I am a passionate baseball fan (of the Baltimore Orioles - we are supposed to suffer for our art, right?) who devours both the poetic, narrative aspect of the game's history as well as the statistical side of its present, and I am a fan of college football and English soccer as well. I've played a number of instruments and still occasionally struggle with trying to teach myself the mandolin.
I maintain a poety-related blog at soundingline.wordpress.com.