There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry

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

I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?

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.

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.

I never think of my audience when I write a poem. I try to write out of whatever is haunting me; in order for a poem to feel authentic, I have to feel I'm treading on very dangerous ground, which can mean that the resulting revelations may prove hurtful to other people. The time for thinking about that kind of guilt or any collective sense of responsibility, however, occurs much later in the creative process, after the poem is finished.

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.