Libraries are where it all begins.

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.

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

I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.

The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.

Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely.