Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas, play with language, solve problems, use my imagination, and draw on my own childhood.

Otherwise I don't read much adult poetry at all, because I'm not smart enough and mostly I don't get it.

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas, play with language, solve problems, use my imagination, and draw on my own childhood.

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.

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

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