I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

If you can't be free, be a mystery.

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer

I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.