Albania was a very isolated country, politically, economically, and culturally. Our only connection to the world was through a radio program called Voice of America, and through the Italian television waves, which we caught illegally through primitive, improvised antennas. The only way to escape from reality was reading books.

To me, poetry is a rational act. I never write a poem if I'm not sure what I am going to say or what I want to communicate.

I come from a culture that was isolated for a long time - I have my own story to tell, in my own style, and an aesthetic approach that was mostly self-taught. So, does it fit a reader's curiosity? Will it meet their expectations?

In my family there was no small talk, only talk about serious things like global politics - trying to interpret the distant political signs, looking desperately for some hope things would change. Religion was forbidden beginning in 1968, when I was born. So my communication with them was limited to issues of everyday life, which were issues of survival.

Words are delicate instruments: How to use them so that, after having read the poem, the taste remaining is not of the words themselves, but of a thought, a situation, a parallel reality? If not used appropriately, words in poetry are like the ugly remains of food after eating. What I mean is that readers will reject words if they don't serve to shift attention from themselves to somewhere else.

Totalitarian regimes produce a culture and a moral code that is totally different from what happens in a democracy. There are two moral categories in a communist society: honest men and bad men. The "honest" ones resist compromising or collaborating with the regime, while the "bad" are the persecutors and collaborators. You can choose to be on one side or the other, but there is nothing in between. In a normal society, other factors can define who you are. You can be a good worker, sociable, tough, generous, tolerant, collaborative, friendly.

We usually understand freedom as meaning that there are many choices - but does having more choices, or believing we do, actually make us more free?