On Being Understood

Transparency is being seen through; it's also being understood. If you can create a pane of glass that people can cast a light through and there are no shadows, that's transparency.

The reason I opened with that poem was because that was the first time, as a writer, that I was being honest. It was the first time that I actually felt myself come out of a poem.

I spent two years writing poems that were the opposite of transparency. I wanted so badly to tell somebody something that would uplift them or make them feel good or make them feel better or inspire them in some way, and all I was doing was being a phony.