We with my husband [Joseph Millar] are often the first reader for one another's work, and we often also have the last word. We trust each other. We have our past working life in common, our recombined families, as well as our life as teachers, and we read much of the same literature and have similar esthetics, so there's a simpatico there. But we do disagree and that can be fruitful, even if it's not so great in the moment.

Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to write, or the next; but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them -- consciously and unconsciously -- your style will develop.

You are not your poetry. Your self-esteem shouldn't depend on whether you publish, or whether some editor or writer you admire thinks you're any good.

The more that accrues, the more depth, weight, and breadth we can bring to the poems, which we then need to throw overboard so we don't sink.

You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake.

A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its own way in the world.

That's how it is sometimes--God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open it.