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

Libraries are where it all begins.

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing

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.

Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.

I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.