I'm interested to know how, over time, your notions of form
might have changed, in particular in reference
to what you're trying to do.
Can you track a change in your thinking about that over time?
I think that maybe the main difference
was I used to write poems that were
very short and kind of cryptic.
And I had a real difficulty getting past about eight lines.
The poem would kind of close in on itself.
It would kind of get very self-conscious
and slam to a conclusion.
And I thought of it, it was kind of like blowing out
birthday candles.
I thought you had to do it in one breath
or, you know, it was bad luck or something.
And really, to extend that, I went back
and read a lot of these Coleridge poems
and these other romantic lyrics to see how these poets got
a second wind, and to see how there would be an initial act
and then there'd be a breath, and then the meditation would--
there'd be another kind of gust of wind
that would take it in another direction.
And then it would fall back this way, so
that the poem had movements to it,
like little mini-symphonic movements.
And that's probably the only describable change, in terms
of form, for me, is just figuring out
how to create an extended meditation in a poem,
rather than a kind of epigrammatic, wise guy kind
of poem that I used to be limited to.