Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

[T]he one thing I want for you is to recognize when you are really singing in writing practice and honor that. Trust that. When you were screaming on the page. Maybe that doesn't make a whole book but that is the true seed.

I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.

Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.

Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.

Finally, if you want to write, you have to just shut up, pick up a pen, and do it. I'm sorry there are no true excuses. This is our life. Step forward. Maybe it's only for ten minutes. That's okay. To write feels better than all the excuses.

When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.