I've written hundreds of poems, some really quickly, some through hundreds of revisions spanning years. One thing that's pretty consistent is that a lot of what I think about is - I'm worrying about the poem getting misread. So I'm removing interpretations I don't like, ones I didn't intend. Poetry is inherently multivalent. You're leaving stuff open. You throw open the doors. And you don't know what will walk in - or crawl in - fly in - scuttle in - from your unconscious - from sheer chance - let alone what will come in when a reader gets to the door. But you leave that door open, or it wouldn't be a poem. Sometimes it's only a crack. Sometimes you blow down the whole wall. Sometimes you leave nothing standing but a few chairs and potted plants.

But it's fairly consistent - at least for me - that I have to put in effort to remove interpretations I just don't want to be part of my poem.

The same goes when I write anything - when anyone writes anything - or says anything - whispers anything when alone in nature. It takes effort to cut out misinterpretation.

And if you try too hard at that, you wonder if you're killing everything vibrant. Sometimes you're worrying that you'll kill it all with any further effort whatsoever. Can't you just drop the words like - I don't know, flower petals in the sand at the beach on a windless afternoon, and whatever shape they make, that's the shape they make?

Sometimes you get stubborn. You know you could be misconstrued, and you think, goddamn you, I am not excising this tumor, and you're putting it here, not me. So if you want to take this gory mass through the door with you? Ok. Go ahead. That's you.

But when you invite like that, it continues to worry you. And you start to think, wait a minute, is this why psychopaths are a little more likely to be artists? No fear. Wouldn't that be nice. You just go with it. Someone wants to misinterpret? Fuck 'em. Who cares. Maybe they'll fawn on you anyway. You want them to misinterpret. You meant for them to.

A poem is simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial expression.

Artificiality still lives fully in natural law. There is no quite unnatural sound or thought. Thoughts are the sounds of the mind, feelings the fragrances.

A poem I wrote in college, toward the last line, mixes the smell of someone taking a crap in a cafe bathroom - only hinted at, but it's there - with the taste of the coffee. That was fully intended. (I mean, it happened. It was part of the memory.) It probably doesn't strike many people as a pleasant or poetic effect, but I wanted to see if I could make it work, make it contribute. Usually I'm a bit embarrassed when I see those last lines, but I worked and reworked the poem enough that I no longer feel like changing it. If that bit sucks - or stinks, more like - or sucks while stinking - then at least I'm proud of a lot of the rest. I don't know what the detail means. But it happened, and it was weird. It means whatever the reality means.

Writing is impression management, but that doesn't mean you have to write like a corporate manager. You may not be aware that you're managing anything. Maybe you aren't. Maybe you aren't even writing when you're writing.

The question is ultimately not, as it is for many when they write, "Am I a good, likable person?" Nor is it "Will someone hire me at a good salary?" Nor "What cause shall I promote today?"

It's some other question, which is why you might leave unpleasant interpretations in, out of respect for an ear that says "But this is more interesting with than without. I am not going to knock down a nest of sparrow eggs to shake out a spider."