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.

Poetry of all the forms of literature I think is the most suited for the digital age and for the shorter attention spans and all of that. It Twitters very easily, some lyric poems and it's very easy to zip a poem to someone, so that's one of the things I think is wonderful about poetry in the digital age.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

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.