What’s been the greatest obstacle to becoming (and remaining) a poet?
M: My greatest obstacle to becoming and remaining a poet has to be patience. One of the reasons early that I moved away from prose is that I didn’t have the patience for it. Building a poem is like throwing together a chicken house, whereas writing a long chunk of prose is more like building a full-on house for a family; it’s a much bigger endeavor. Not necessarily any less rewarding—You know, those eggs that come out of the henhouse are pretty darned tasty. So, it has to be patience. I’ve always kind of like the struggle to resist the first word that comes to mind or the line that sounds good, or the poem draft that feels like it’s just the greatest thing in the world. To resist that and put it away and put drafts down and start another draft. I just love the process of drafting and the little game of impatience and trying to teach myself to just sit on it, sit on that poem, sit on that line—that might not be the best word—hang out with it. I love it when I’m patient enough with a poe
