By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.

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.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something

As an African-American, as a woman I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.

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

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