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

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

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.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

A poet is not something you become; a poet is something you are.

I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it's fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.