I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.