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.

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.

The BALLPOINT PENGUINS, black and white, Do little else but write and write. Although they've nothing much to say, They write and write it anyway.

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

I'm working now on a collection of Shakespearean sonnets, about 100 of them, that I may publish if anyone's interested. My take on life is a little different from the bard's.

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

I always knew would be some sort of artist, but didn't know what.