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 sound of a word is at least as important as the meaning.

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

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

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

I accept challenges, I have always done that in writing.

There's not too much difference between writing a picture book and writing a collection of a hundred poems or so, except that the bigger books take a lot longer to do.