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

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

At the very beginning when I begin writing a poem I try not to think of the audience or anyone at all except for trying to get at the very center of what is driving that poem. In a way it's like analyzing myself.

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years - or longer.