Author Asks

1.) The first poem in the book, "Reading Plato," is written as one continuous periodic sentence that rolls through 33 lines—what effect does this formal decision have on the "content" of the poem? And what would you say the poem is about?

2.) Another formal feature of the poems is a reliance on "sectioning." How does the clear delineation between one part of a poem and another part affect your reading of the poem as a whole? Does the sectioning add or detract to the pacing of the narrative?

3.) One reason why I use sectioning is to effect a collage-like reading for the reader, a sense of the poem as a palimpsest for various narratives and perspectives and chronologies. Describe your sense of how the sectioning affects you as a reader.

4.) I like to think of my poems as being situated between narrative and high lyricism. How do you think the poems exemplify this in-between space which the poems (hopefully) describe and occupy?

5.) Take a look at two of the longer poems in the book, "Eight Elegies" and "Miro's Notebook." How do these poems bear out that negotiation between narrative and lyricism which I've mentioned?

6.) What kind of work do the images do in the poems? As a poet I find myself obsessed with the visual aspect of things. Is this preoccupation apparent in the poems, and how is it played out?

7.) Eliot's idea of the "objective correlative" is an important notion to me. How do you think I've taken Eliot's idea—which is basically the idea of finding the appropriate objective representation for an internal truth—and made use of it in my poems?

8.) The visual arts—painting and photography—are important resources to me as a writer. How are these affinities apparent in the poems? "Bonnard's Garden," which is about the French painter Pierre Bonnard, and "Ocean Park Notebook," which is about the California painter Richard Diebenkorn, are good poems to look at in this regard.

9.) I'm sometimes asked what my favorite poem is in the book. I always say "At Point Reyes," which is a poem about a beautiful coastline in California, which is where I'm from. Why do think this poem would exemplify my work as a poet?

10.) What is the role of desire in these poems? There are love poems here, and elegies, and poems which are about visual acuity. How does the propulsion of desire inform these poems?