I wrote my first poem at around 11 or 12 and threw it in the trash. I was too tough for poetry then, and it wasn't until three years later that began to write again. I couldn't stop. I still can't. I am a writer as Rilke defines it: one who is compelled to write. My writing comes from the hard places; the difficult, seemingly impossible things... Writers who have and continue to influence me are (in no particular order): King, Poe, Anis Mojgani, Whitman, Yeats, Thoreau, Snyder, Ginsberg, Olson, Taylor Mali, Stacy Chin, Alexandra Fuller, Tim O'brien, and John Krakauer. That's the short list... there are more. 

Author of Conversations with Jackson
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