I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write for the page.

When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.

I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door.

I don't write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.

So one can say that I write all the time, that goes for the lyrics as well.

I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason weeks later, but I try to get the whole thing just done.