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

Poetry seems to sink into us the way prose doesn't. I can still quote verses I learned when I was very young, but I have trouble remembering one line of a novel I just finished reading.

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.

I would go to sketch groups and draw. I really enjoyed the subject matter, but I wasn't good at it.

His blood is black and boiling hot, he gurgles ghastly groans. He'll cook you in his dinner pot, your skin, your flesh, your bones.

I'm usually working on eight or 10 things at once.

I write the poems first, with only a few exceptions for odd reasons, where I'm given the illustration first.