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

One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits.

Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.

As an African-American, as a woman I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.

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