Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing.

I'm not dismayed that poetry's appeal is limited in scope. That's why we have National Poetry Month. It's a sign of its neglect, which isn't necessarily a negative thing. It's not like we have National TV Month.

Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.

Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing.

I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more.

Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.