Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.

When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.

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

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

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

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.