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

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.

She comes by night, in fearsome flight, in garments black as pitch, the queen of doom upon her broom, the wild and wicked witch.

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

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

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

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