The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

Back then, I couldn't have left a poem a year and gone back to it.

Some things you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme...they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

I was very lucky to have a mother who encouraged me to become a poet.

You have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, 'That is truly what I felt.' That is truly what I saw.

I say, Father, the years have brought me here, still your son, they have brought me to a life I cannot understand.