I hope any poem I’ve ever written could stand on its own and not need to be a part of biography, critical theory or cultural studies. I don’t want to give a poetry reading and have to provide the story behind the poem in order for it to make sense to an audience. I certainly don’t want the poem to require a critical intermediary – a “spokescritic.” I want my poems to be independently meaningful moments of power for a good reader. And that’s the expectation I initially bring to other poets’ writing.
