I never feel comfortable answering questions about my favorite writers, worry I will end up leaving out my very favorites. My bookcases overflow with contemporary poetry collections and I read short stories on trains, planes and subways when I travel. I suppose my time in graduate school, first working on a Master's thesis on Dylan Thomas and later, working in 15th, 16th and 17th century poetry, esp Wyatt and Donne, probably had an influence that others might see more than I do. Others see connections to Emily Dickinson, Robert Creeley, Sylvia Plath and even Bukowski. I've always liked blues music, with so much left unsaid, to be filled in by the listener or reader.
Someone always wants photographs, resumes, comments about the work.
I also spent much time arranging readings. If I was teaching, I'd prepare workshop exercises, invite other poets to come and read. The film shows me getting up early, grinding coffee beans for coffee, feeding the cat and then writing, by hand, in spiral notebooks before I even got dressed. Lately that stretch of time, uncluttered and going on forever like an empty beach, is pure luxury. But until recently, as the film shows, it was definitely my daily pattern.