My mother was told she couldn't go to medical school because she was a woman and a Jew. So she became a teacher in the New York City public school system.

Good writing gives energy, whatever it is about.

Community means people spending time together here, and I don't think there's really that.

As a teacher you are more or less obliged to pay the same amount of attention to everything. That can wear you down.

There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something.

I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.