[I] have fantasies of killing myself and thus being the powerful one not the powerless one.

Poetry to me is prayer.

The sea is mother-death and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.

Emerald as heavy as a golf course, ruby as dark as an afterbirth, diamond as white as sun on the sea.

Images are the heart of poetry ... You're not a poet without imagery.

The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.

Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.