People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me.

From the beginning. I was a poem-writing child. I wrote little novels in my composition book when I was eight, nine years old.

People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

I'm much more capable of cutting back than of expanding. I've gotten very surgical about poems.

Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead.

I think we're always most interested in the things we're doing right now.