DAPA and something about gender orientation and ethnicity are common data points in Poetry’s thumbnail profiles of contributors to the magazine. They’re like snapshots of bodybuilders flexed for pose-off. Musculature duly noted, but here’s what’s truly interesting:

How do you get around? Car? Bus? On foot?
Content of your fridge and spice rack at this moment?
Where do you write? If by a window, what’s the view?
Favored travel destination?
How do you decide verses need to go public?

Do you say “glow worm” or “lightning bug”? “Seesaw” or “teeter totter”? Does “route” rhyme with “rout,” “root” or neither?  What about “hoof” and “hooves”? Pray for “peace” or for “victory”?

Distilling such info into an essence is challenging, but that’s the point. You’re a poet! Say something revelatory and evocative about yourself in two or three sentences. 

This is me:

I avoid shelf-stable soy milk in favor of the “fresh” stuff. I’d choose “peace.” My recipe for a getaway is a bicycle equipped with pannier and the Upper Peninsula in the Fall. Lightening bug, seesaw, rout.

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