I'm pretty much the same person I was 20 years ago. My politics haven't changed. I have the same feeling of idealism. But I am a little bit wiser and more experienced.

I'm polite. I guess that's the dichotomy within me. I don't like to piss people off just for the sake of pissing them off. I pick my battles.

The perfect man? A poet on a motorcycle.

I'm an artist first and foremost. So things are gonna go up and down and sideways and whichever way all through life.

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.

It's just the more you do it the better you get, or at least that's how I feel in my case. I think it's a combination of confidence and just having done it this long and just learning. I'm always learning. I'm still honing my craft.

Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.