Once you realize that human actions affect every bit of earth and sky, you realize that the environment isn't just what surrounds us - it's all one whole.

Sometimes it gets talked about as if life is all about the individual, and I don't think it is. I'm really interested in what writing can contribute to a kind of cultural intelligence.

I don't want people to write programmatic environmental poems, but I think sustainability should become deeply a part of the consciousness of poetry - an impulse toward compassion, empathy, and social justice.

Earth's immune system - its rapid response team of self-protection - becomes invigorated at times of peril. And one sees it at play now in the upwelling of grassroots work aimed at finding a sustainable future.

I'm filled with despair. We live in a pathological culture filled with rage and bitterness and greed. The hate-mongering and racism is reaching a frightening pitch.

For the poets, my hope is that they will, quite simply, feel the obligation to be really informed about the situation in which we find ourselves, in terms of our imperiled planet. You should inform yourself so deeply that it becomes part of your nature, part of your voice.

Writers want recognition, audience, some corroboration that all those hours at the desk and in daydreams add up to something in the esteem of others.