There's no word for what Young does, only for what he accomplishes-the capturing of small, daily miracles.

The students always, always surprise me.

Every poem I write falls short in some important way. But I go on trying to write the one that won’t.

I feel deep gratitude for the life poetry has allowed me to live. I know the life I could have lived without it. Both on the physical plain, and the soul plain. Poetry helps us endure.

We're all writing out of a wound, and that's where our song comes from. The wound is singing. We're singing back to those who've been wounded.

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

I think what life experience has brought to my poems is compassion. When you work hard to make a living, raise a child up into the world, fail at marriage and try again, teach and fail, travel and fall, become ill, well again, weak but grateful, you learn patience, forbearance.