These are stories about how human behaviour contradicts popular social sentiments. I can thank the erratic tone of snow tyres on a deserted winter's highway in Chicago for the chord sequence to Chemical Eyes. I can thank bad science for the inspiration for the lyric.

Good Friday at Little Rock was published in the book Of Moonlight and Wishes, a compendium of new American poets that were selected by the N Y Times that year. The heartland of America in the mid 90s set the scene. When LA and New York were watching CNN and making money hand over fist on the NasDaq, the heartland was suffering, unsung and forgotten. Bill Clinton's original political seat was a boarded up wasteland. I took a good look at it that Easter, and this is what I saw. More recent events in the US have only exacerbated the condition.

Winner of NY Times 1996 award for best new poet