I use the environment, local or otherwise, as ground for much of my work--even poems that seemingly have little to do with "nature." This aspect might be obvious in a poem like "Damage Zones," which uses Mexico's oyamel fir forest as imagery, and less noticeable in "Love in the Marrow;" but for me, the human body is also environment...as is the human conscious self. The self that imagines poems in its endless effort to affiliate with others and the world, maybe through love.

Ann E. Michael is the author of six chapbook collections and the book Water-Rites. She lives, gardens, and loafs in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.