Offspring were a joy or a shame, but still the crown of their elders, nature's unpredictable creatures.

I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.

Offspring were a joy or a shame, but still the crown of their elders, nature's unpredictable creatures.

This is going to sound nuts but it took me forever to figure out why I'd stopped writing poetry - I mean, I went about a decade where I wrote very little poetry and I thought it was because I was doing a weekly blog. And then when we moved, I reconfigured my writing desk. The previous one had had very little space to write by hand. And suddenly, the poetry was gushing!

I've gotten to try on voices very different than my own, and I've become much more aware of structure than ever before. Also, you really weigh every word. There's no closer reading then when you read to translate.

The legacy of the embargo will be Cuba's poverty and desperation. When the island comes out of it, they'll be even more desperate than they are now about the things they think they've missed. I think one of the unintended results of the embargo is that Cuba is quite consumerist - and I'm talking about the people, not the government or the official propaganda.

Interestingly, in Cuba abortion is treated as lightly as getting a mole removed.