“And here comes my neighbor Stávros. He lives with his wife and son in the only other house on this side of the small bay. If I’m on my veranda when he passes,…

“The children keep asking where/the other children are. Their mothers won’t say/phony life-vests pulled them toward the bottom/while breakers drove them into jagged cliffs./Tourists on their morning walk won’t see/the skins of boats…

“I know the terror of being torn away from people and places I love, time and again, and the anguish, shame and self-alienation that come from injuring others. Though I moved to Greece…

“Black as I had tried to be (foolish or not), the riots ‘reformed’ me—not toward goodness but toward deeper self-awareness and an impatient need to express and act upon my anger. Consciously or…

“But that’s only half the story, at least for me. I also need to break out of the routine now and then, turn away from ritual, and engage with the outside world, which…

“The older I get, the more I can relate to Odysseus’ need to forsake the thrill of adventure and return to home and family, to recover, after so long, a sense of belonging.…

“In the poetry I’ve written up to now (four books and a ms. in progress), over 60 types of fauna appear: dogs and donkeys; scorpions, frogs and lizards; flies, gnats and ticks; grubs,…

“I know the terror of being torn away from people and places I love, time and again, and the anguish, shame and self-alienation that come from injuring others. Though I moved to Greece…

“I wound up taking several of his workshops, eventually doing an MA with him and, in the process, learned how to focus intently on details in my writing, to not be satisfied with…

“Through revisiting those terrifying moments—the betrayals and abandonment, lies and abuse—in poem after poem, book after book, I’ve forged a new perspective on myself, and on those who did me harm. Through that…