I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow, and somehow, each of us will help the other live, and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.

I think poets should work in the non-literary, non-academic world, get to know more than a workshop or a university.

Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'

One does not give birth in a void, but rather in a cultural and political context. Laws, professional codes, religious sanctions, and ethnic traditions all affect women's choices concerning childbirth.

I think of poetry as something out there in the world and within each of us. I don't mean that everyone can write poetry - it's an art, a craft, it requires enormous commitment like any art. But there's a core of desire in each of us and poetry goes to and comes from that core. It's the social, economic, institutional gap that makes it difficult.

Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage.