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

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.

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

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

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

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!