eye because he knows me. Just like your teacher, Tim or Luisa, might look at your work and say, “You know what you’re doing here? You’re doing this.” EW: Or you might. When we talked, you mentioned a bunch of themes I hadn’t even thought about. DL: Exactly. You need another person in the world because you’re too close to it. Not always, but sometimes you’re just too close to it. Or, you might come to it in time, but the other person can see it right then. So, for whatever reason, it took him looking at it and saying, “This is what you’re doing.” And I had to agree. It was the easiest book I ever put together. EW: Have you found that with the more experience you get writing, and putting together manuscripts, that you’ve learned to take that step back? Does that become easier, taking that step back from your work? DL: It amazes me how long anyone can be writing, and still write a poem that’s littered with clichés, or that is really just something that’s been done a billion times before. It’s hard to see your own work. Another great example is my husband coming into my studio. He said, “What are you doing,” and I said, “Oh, I just wrote this stupid little poem.” He convinced me to read it, and I read it, and he said, “Oh, that’s beautiful. Yeah, that’s great.” To me, it was just a little throw-away, it didn’t really do anything, but he was all over it. And I do that for my friends, too. Jane Hirschfield sent me a poem, “Oh, here’s a little throw-away, but I thought you’d like it.” I had to write back, “What do you mean, I love it!” It was called “The Ground Fall Pear.” [She recites the poem]. Isn’t that a great poem? But to her, it was just a thing. Just a little throwaway. So, there is that. On the other hand, as time goes on, you do get more sensitive to clichés, to this is something I’ve done before, or everybody’s done this before, and I’m just obviously doing it again. So I think you do become more discerning, more able to pull back and see your work. But, there is always that mysterious, kind of foggy place where you just don’t know. Conversely, you think, “This is the poem I’ve been trying to write all my life.” EW: “This is the Title Poem!” DL: And to you, you are filled with all kinds of emotions or whatever, and you show it to somebody. And they say, “Oh. Yeah, it’s pretty good, it’s alright.” And that’s weird. Because, your internal life, it fills you up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it spills over onto the page yet. So, I think you
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