I usually write at the end of the day and stop whatever I am doing to write. Sometimes I get out of bed and write. I write everything down immediately and rarely go back to change anything. Most of my poems come from a simple idea that suddenly occurs to me.

I try to take easy shortcuts if I see something at a distance that would remain out of reach if I went jot for jot. I try to throw a large net over it all. I may write two poems a month, then not write at all for a year.

Six of the poems here are reactions to memorable images or events: a tiger in a Minneapolis zoo which I knew from the moment I saw him I would use someday, and did by putting him in a tree in Charleston; punks at a traffic light; brats in an SUV; a fatal car wreck; a WWII veteran; a wild lament. Ponderous meditations on science and the daily news, what-if notions, make up the rest.