A long time ago, Anne used to talk about energy - how that was all that love was - ions connecting across synapses of time and air. Don't rationalize, she'd say. None of it will ever make sense. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, not wanting to cry. Anne was right. None of it made any sense.

I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking.

Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.

Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.

We do inherently know that poetry is about the way we speak. It's about where we pause, where we drop our words in the middle of a sentence. It's about the rhythm and the cadence of the way we speak. It's about putting that down at the end of the day.

There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.

Everything I write, I read out loud. It has to sound a certain way. It has to look a certain way on the page.