Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate.

I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

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.

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

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

In fact, sometimes traveling the world is a way of not writing a poem, but it's the quality of experience. It's being able to experience something and when you begin to write about it be able to apply the tools that you need for writing.