Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

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.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

The First Book: Go ahead, it won't bite. Well... maybe a little. More a nip, like. A tingle. It's pleasurable, really. You see, it keeps on opening. You may fall in. Sure, it's hard to get started; remember learning to use knife and fork? Dig in: you'll never reach bottom. It's not like it's the end of the world -- just the world as you think you know it.

I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!

I change jobs like drinking water ... And as I grow accustomed to the new flavor of a drink I regard as delicious, yes, vital, something fades, life balks. So I break camp; I shed skins.

I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.