Collins


 I have written poetry continuously over the last

thirty years. I had not intended to be a poet nor a

professor; I initially began my writing career as a

journalist. I covered everything in small newspapers,

a multitude of things from sports to the notorious, which

is an excellent background for any writer. It gives you

the ability to work under pressure and to get things out,

a sense of deadline which I find extremely important for

most writers.

 I went to Spain when I was in my 20s still working

as a journalist. I had thought I'd like to be, as most

people from my generation, a novelist. I tried that,

but it didn't work very well. So almost by accident,

I drifted into poetry, to very early romantic stuff,

which I have saved but never published. That went on for

a while, then I went back to journalism, then to teaching,

and it was about that time that I started really getting

quite serious about poetry. I decided that was the one

genre that I was continuing to work in. It was by no

means the only genre that I was continuing to work in;

I also did a lot of academic publishing. Poetry by

necessity has been somewhat sporadic because I was a drama