My poems were just kind of all over the place. They had no focus, no location, nothing. Kind of a series of images that could have been set anywhere. A lot of the poems were just exercises for myself.

I used to object to being called an Indian writer, and would always say I was a writer who happened to be an Indian, and who happened to write about Indians.

I am definitely a storyteller, but probably not a traditional Storyteller.

The economic piece is still missing, since it's so hard to attract industry to reservations, but spiritually and educationally, they're doing just fine. Each tribe has a community college now, and they teach the language, they teach the traditions.

Being scared is really a good thing. It's being scared of being scared that's bad. Being scared of walking through your fear, going to a place of true creativity - that's what an artist is, that's what he does. If you do that, then being inspired by your contemporaries or people from the past is really great.

Creativity can release you from the limitations that the world has constructed around you; the everyday, mundane, 9-5 jail cell where everybody is waiting for the weekend to party so they can get outside of their head.

I might be like a conductor, or I collect the stuff together and I do a lot of my own writing. But what is a pleasure is the whole creative thing in which we're all excavating and trying to find something.

I love doing normal things - movies, shopping, going out with friends, writing, reading, taking hot bubble baths - that's a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.