My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

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

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

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.

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.