For me, poetry is at least partly a visual and musical art form. Or at least, it comes out of those parts of my mind. Making art is more important to me than poetry in particular, but poetry is my first and oldest art, and my central identity. (I'm also a musician, photographer, plastic artist, and computer artist). I'm intrigued by the pieces that "come easily" out of a weird part of my head, but more in love with the things I have to work hard for. I have composed several songscapes and vocal settings for performance with my poems, and one, "Easternmost West-flowing River," was set by the compose Katherine Hoover.

I have published nine books or chapbooks of poetry, most recently Definitions (Fomite Press, 2021), and Aleph, broken: Poems from My Diaspora (Broadstone Books, 2016). I have also published three books of translations of Spanish poetry and fiction, Between Two Silences (Dominican; short fiction by Hilda Contreras, 2000 Premio Nacional de Literatura - Mayapple Press, 2013), A Woman in Her Garden: Selected Poems of Dulce María Loynaz (Cuban; Cervantes Prize laureate, 1992 - White Pine Press in 2002) and Praises and Offenses: Three Women Poets from the Dominican Republic (BOA Editions, Lannan selections, 2009). I was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to the Dominican Republic in 2002, translating the poetry and fiction of contemporary Dominican women; I made a video about Dominican Carnaval during a second visit in 2004.

I have a Ph.D. in English from the University at Buffalo and am Professor Emerita of English at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan.