This was such a fun interview that I did about my forthcoming book Tasty Other (and other poetry-related things). Thanks, Nicole Ross Rollender! Here’s one of my favorite parts…

Do you think poets have a responsibility as artists to respond to what’s happening in the world, and put that message out there? Does your work address social issues?
I don’t think poets have to respond directly to current events, but then I don’t think poems have to have a clear message. Some poems show us an image like a painting. Some play with sound. I do think that creating poems—and any act of artistic creation—is a way of responding to what’s happening in the world regardless of the content of those poems. To say that beauty and art matter in the face of violence and fear is radical.