The Future of Love is your eighth collection of poems. How is it different than your other collections?
My last collection, a selected poems that came out as a facing-page translation only in Italy, was translated by the wonderful Italian poet Pietro Federico. As I was putting that book together, I thought a lot about how through my first six collections I have altered styles, matured, explored different kinds of subject matter, etc. Also, I can say that while each of my collections has a small number of love poems, this book is primarily composed of love poems that I have been writing for over twenty years for my wife. They are all free verse poems, except for the title poem, made of lines of only three syllables each. Of all the poems I’ve written, probably half my work is in strict forms and half free verse. But this collection, for some reason, has pushed the regular meters/structures away in favor of wilder rhythms and lines. Lastly, this book is almost entirely set in Spain, where we spent a good amount of time in the first fifteen years of our marriage.
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