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.

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

At the very beginning when I begin writing a poem I try not to think of the audience or anyone at all except for trying to get at the very center of what is driving that poem. In a way it's like analyzing myself.

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

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

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.