I think of my poems as a family of toadstools
trying to escape America. My subject matter
is the absurd swag an innocent child collects
at a boat show.
I don’t seek to make work that prioritizes
certain kinds
of insects or ranks rivers.
My poems are a record of what I had to go on.
My current project, “How to Win at Poetry,” is what happens
when I keep writing.
I think of my poems as dice.
My subject matter is shadow and the canister it retreats to
in a rainstorm after an office party.
I’ve always had an affinity for repeated phrases.
I’ve always had
an affinity for wallpaper.
My subject matter
is abstraction and how it helps
distinguish between irony
and irreverence.
I think of my poems as incomplete
hindsight.
from Connoisseurship for Aficionados