At bottom, I'm a cheerful person.

With kids, they force you to get out of bed. They force you to smile. They remind you of spontaneity.

I think poetry can lead to policy, and I can hear the laughter when I say that.

I love the fact that I can go to a museum now that tells me I'm in the postmodern age.

I found it instructive and highly constructive as a writer to go to a point of disaster and come out with a feel for it and then some sort of a lesson based on feeling.

My grandfather is Portuguese. He betrayed what was expected of him and married my grandmother of African descent on my father's side.

I try to be even-handed and fair-minded about my view of history. I don't romanticize one side and demonize the other, though I do think that if you're suffering a lot, especially in the Bob Marley sense, suffering becomes a kind of university out of which you'll learn some hard lessons.