[on 'Allegheny, BC'] I write poetry to kind of make sense out of my own life. Poems, for me, give meaning, order, beauty - which is not a word you hear thrown around too much, and some people say it is hokey - dignity, and substance to what has been, for a large part of my life, a difficult life. A lot of it was kind of ugly and tawdry. The purpose of the record was to not get into self-pity or be maudlin. One of the things that the poems allow me to do is detach myself, to create enough distance that I can put things down and make something of it, rather than wallowing in self-pity. I mean, fuck, I can be a miserable, self-pitying, whiny bitch. I really can. And it's something that I really have to work at, because being that kind of person is a waste of my time and everyone else's time.