Since my mother was a librarian, the house I grew up in offered me a constant and ever-changing array of books — but it was my first year of college when I fell in love with art. That year I met the rigor of poetic form — learning from the strict exercises and scrupulous critique of composer-poet Barney Childs — while I also found the freedom of the ceramics studio — learning from the precision craftsmanship of Leon Moburg as well as my many late-night hours at the wheel. It has taken me longer to see how this fascination and facility with structures and mechanisms, with discipline and play led me through a studio MFA and a PhD. As the man said, poets are the systems-makers of the world, and my practice informs all parts of my life: as poet, as teacher, as artist, as editor, as administrator, as handyman, and as husband.