There’s a lot of ways to talk about this but in terms of writer’s block, every block I’ve ever had, every metaphysical obstacle and every obstacle inside of me that has prevented me from doing something that mattered to me always factored down to fear. It was really a matter of, in most cases, lowering my standards, and it was this kind of perfectionism. Like, I can’t write badly, I can’t fail, I can’t be rejected. If it becomes okay to be rejected or to fail or to stutter in your attempt at something, then it becomes more possible to do it. If I have to do it perfectly the first time—and my default is that it should be perfect the first time—then I become immobilized.

Absolutely. I also have some ideas that are more philosophical—or maybe even spiritual—that have to do with my faith in language as material. I’m interested in allowing as much of my unconscious to come through. I think my own consciousness is not so interesting and I don’t generally write to express myself. I write to find deep truths for myself and for other people and to make poems that feel like they’re connected with a deep, essential aspect of human experience. Even if the poems themselves are very specific or particular, somehow they’re connected to those forces. That’s what I’m looking for in poetry. I need to get out of myself, in a way. I believe in language and I want to subject myself to it. That’s why I like working with found text or just putting myself out into the world where other people are talking, listening to what they’re saying, walking by signs and looking at newspapers and things. Picking up on the glimpses of truth in language, then trying to work that into the poems.

For sure. I think that’s why I also work in other mediums. Sometimes I have the urge to make something. Sometimes I want to make a poem but at that moment I can’t for whatever reason, so I work with other materials. I like to do sculpture; my sculptures are usually more like objects. I also play music here and there, but I just do these things to kind of help me with writing… I use these other ways of making to help keep my wheels moving in one way or another, and eventually the language will come for writing. Sometimes I do get writer’s block, but I have never really viewed it in that way. I still try to make things even if I don’t have the language or words to put to it in at the moment.

I don’t get stuck creatively. I was built to use and know my body—to trust its limits, only in that they can be broken. My mind works like an athlete’s mind and body. I’m an ox on the page, yoked to some aching heaviness, grinding some mark of myself into the clay. If I’m ever frustrated or angry or bored, I use my body. To walk, to run, to make love, to touch.

I’m the worst about this. I often don’t know. I’ll have 14 small victories while I’m working on something. I’m like, “It’s done,” and I show it to somebody and they’re like, “Is it?” They ask me a couple questions, or I’ll realize myself like, “I think it’s done,” and then a few days later I’ll realize that, “Oh no, I’m still having ideas about it.”