Statement About my Work

So far my work has been almost obsessively concerned with movement, deracination and identity. My third collection of poems, Arrivals (2004), contained work set in such diverse locales as India, New Zealand, Greece, Ireland, Scotland, and various parts of the United States, especially my native Pacific Northwest and ancestral Colorado. However, the attempt was to avoid anything remotely resembling mere “travel poetry” or “postcard poetry.” I wanted to evoke a trouble sense of being and place that would hopefully be just as vivid and precise if I had set every poem in the same back yard. The plural in the title, Arrivals, is meant to suggest arrival in multiple forms, and perhaps something of our modern condition. Since my verse novel, Ludlow, is largely about immigrants, it builds on the same obsessions, though the story here has strong social and political overtones. I wanted to bring everything I know about language to bear on that book. I’m at work on many new projects, and have just completed the libretto for an opera based upon The Scarlet Letter, with music by Lori Laitman. We’re hoping for a 2008 premiere and additional performances around the country.