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.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

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

What writing does is to reveal.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.