In law school they teach you that everything is a contract; well, in poetry everything is a narrative.

I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.

America may not be the best nation on earth, but it has conceived loftier ideals and dreamed higher dreams than any other nation. America is a heterogeneous nation of many different people of different races, religions, and creeds. Should this experiment go forth and prosper, we will have offered humans a new way to look at life; should it fail, we will simply go the way of all failed civilizations.

Everyone understands that love comes in many different packages and is used in many different ways. You cannot love beyond your years, nor can you fail to love beneath them... In other words, I think you get the love you need when you open your heart.

Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.

You do what you can with what you have. You have to work the edges whatever they are. The main thing is keeping your integrity.

Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.