I write to be recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self - all of those different aspects of it.

In terms of what I write about, I consider no subject too small. Often it's the small moments, that through the amplification of poetry, reveal the larger, more profound truths that we all come to recognize and treasure.

I write a lot, and then forget what I've written, and then come back to it and say, "Not bad, I should do something with this!"

I lived a life I knew I had to hide My father's edicts resolutely grim.

Young poets worry that their experiences - whether urban or rural, immigrant or native, small town, suburb, or big city - aren't worthy of the written word. But for me the urge toward poetry, that seductive feeling of being swept away by words, was enough for me to overcome that fear that my experiences weren't worthy of poetry itself.

I do bring my teaching together with my writing. I make students write in class, and do the same prompts I give them. I'm always on the lookout for teaching poems - poems that inspire me and my students to write poems in response.

It's fun to see someone grow as a writer, moving from their first workshopped poems to publishing their earliest poems to having a book accepted for publication. It's great to see poets with persistence succeed.