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

Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.

Anyone can tell you that how you're raised as a child has a great deal to do with how you behave as an adult and whether you have complexes or whether you need to prove yourself or all that kind of stuff and yet the mother in a traditional family who has raised a child never makes it in the history books.

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

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

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

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