Better off dead than giving in; not taking what you want.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

Poets sing our human music for us.

I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems