In a 2010 interview with Marc Vincenz for Open Letters Monthly, [Bilingual Russian poet Katia] Kapovich stated,
“When we are young, it’s our passions that take command of us; we follow them fearlessly and sometimes win, because passions know shortcuts. That’s been good enough for many years. Now it’s experience and lots of thinking that I want to guide me and guard me. No more haste. In poetry hastiness is inappropriate. A lyrical poem is a small thing that can travel a long way. I slow myself down; I measure and weigh it in the palm again and again. Here’s my only chance, I tell myself. I have one arrow, so it better be perfect.”