Looking at my life was very difficult. I think I learned that I haven't been as good a person as I'm inclined to think of myself as. I haven't been as good friend, haven't been as good a person, made a lot of mistakes.

Purple as tulips in May, mauve into lush velvet, purple as the stain blackberries leave on the lips, on the hands, the purple of ripe grapes sunlit and warm as flesh.

My idea of Hell is to be young again.

Suspense is one of the ways you persuade a reader to become engaged and stay engaged with your work.

We may be losing the ability to understand animals who are not pets or horses. We have less contact with them. We don't (most of us) tend to know even cows and pigs, let alone bears or wolverines or red tailed hawks.

One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.

Memory in Greek mythology is the mother of the muses, and it is so for me. Both personal and societal memory move me strongly, and that is one of the sources of my writing.