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

The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.