When I began writing, I didn't read any other children's poets... I didn't want to be influenced until I'd found my own voice. Now I read them all.

Frankly, writing poetry for children is plain old fun, and I consider myself blessed to have such a delightful career.

My wife used to tell me one of my best qualities was that my feet don't smell, but I remember my brother's did when we were kids.

Then I decided to draw from and on my own imagination, and everything came out perfect.

I invented animals and birds - I had about two dozen. After working on them for six months, I sat down and just for fun wrote two dozen poems to accompany the drawings. It was for no one to every see, but a friend sent me in to an editor.

I'm mostly influenced by life, what's around me, and my own childhood.

I've been influenced by poets as diverse as Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.