What I discovered was is that it's rare to find a person that you feel very intimate with, and you can sleep with lots of people and not find what you're looking for.

I started with poetry because it was direct, immediate, and short. It was the ecstasy of striking matches in the dark.

But come back in November or December, in February or March, when the fog, la nebbia, settles upon the city like a marvelous monster, and you will have little trouble believing that things can appear and disappear in this labyrinthine city, or that time here could easily slip in its sprockets and take you, willingly or unwillingly, back.

The absolute bedrock of our independence is having control over our own bodies. You cannot be independent if the government or someone else says whether or not you can use birth control. Unless you're in charge of your body, you're not in charge of anything. I think that's really the bottom line of feminism.

Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.

It takes a spasm of love to write a poem.

Spring, / you are a pinking shears: you cut / fresh edges on the world.