One needs to be on guard against expecting external powers to decide when you can take yourself seriously as an artist. It can be a long wait - and lead to endless appetite.

Poetry is one of the most full ways of discovering what it feels like to be a human being in this particular moment, in this particular set of concerns. It's all about discovery.

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.

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.

I'm extremely interested in science as the mythos within which I live. Science tells me what kind of animal I am, what kind of a universe I live in. It's always deepening my understanding of the natural world.

There are landscapes and species that are not going to be here a hundred years from now, fifty years from now. One gift we as writers give to the world is to bear witness to these landscapes and species as we have experienced them.

I'm always trying to ask myself both "Who am I as an individual?" and "What are the cultural forces that have made me the person that I am?" How can I understand myself as a cultural creature as well as an individual? I'm really obsessed with that question, and always asking my students to consider it.