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.

My first advice would be to read, read, read, which sounds interesting coming in a digital age, but it's so much easier to listen to a poem than it is to sit down and actually read it and to hear it in your head and that is something that every poet or aspiring poet needs to be able to do, I think to hear it in their head.

If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.

Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?

If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.

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