I like to joke that I started writing long poems out the anxiety over ending and starting poems. It just seemed easier to keep going.

The countries that are the least responsible for causing climate change are paying the heaviest price.

For me teaching has provided community and livelihood and the satisfaction of passing along what I've learned to others.

Poetry is a really helpful instrument. It's so physical; the musicality becomes a sort of expression of the body. The mind is there too, in the formal aspects of the poem. The emotions are there in the way the senses gather things into the poem.

What keeps me level is the refusal to let the best of human aspirations die in the face of the challenges. I make a moral decision to be hopeful.

It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost.

I don't know much about death and the sorriest lesson I've learned is that words, my most trusted guardians against chaos, offer small comfort in the face of anyone's dying.