Rigoberto Gonzalez Quotes

Matt Mason must be declared the poet laureate of the Midwest! No other native son celebrates the overlooked America, its unsung citizens (from the anonymous poets to the part-time English teachers), and its expansive indigenous landscape, as well as he does. Mason's poetry is humorous when he wants to be quirky, heartbreaking when he wants to be eloquent, and though he moves effortlessly into other moods and geographies, he always returns to his first and most enduring love (and to what he knows best)-his homeland.

One of the things I'm constantly telling my students is that they're never going to write a poem everyone gets, or if they do, they've failed. They should leave someone behind every time.

Human suffering is articulated in language; communication is how we seek help, consolation, etc.

I figure I write for people who are intelligent enough to do some labor. Lazy readers are not my ideal readers.

Revision is a good impulse to have.

I turned to human suffering because - this may sound odd - animal suffering is more difficult for me to deal with.

I like to move around in the landscape between poetry and prose, between the lyrical and the narrative.

I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find their perfect home.

I enjoy working on a number of projects - books - at once.

I tend to overuse the word "project" only because "book" is terrifying while I'm still in the middle of something. A project can fail. I don't want a book to fail.

I always revise when I publish in a book. So versions in magazines are sometimes slightly different.

I pay editors. I never ask friends or colleagues to work for free.

Publishers have in-house editors, but I hire my own before I submit the work to publishers. They appreciate it and I feel more confident about the material.