I've been working on a clutch of new poems and thinking a lot about--wait for it--Alaska. One of the overwhelming problems in thinking about Alaska is the size and diversity of the place and people. Which Alaska are you writing about? Southeast? Anchorage? West coast? North Slope? The Interior? And I should tell you right now that I'm leaving places out.
Here's another challenge: Alaskans have a ear for the inauthentic rivaled only by Southerners.
So here's what I'm writing about: my backyard. It's full of stuff I've never encountered before: aspens and birches, American red squirrels, ravens, moose, boreal chickadees.
And yet it occurs to me that everyone's backyard is full of stuff they've never encountered before.