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

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.

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

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

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

I'm usually working on eight or 10 things at once.

I've been influenced by poets as diverse as Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.