I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

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

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.

Libraries are where it all begins.

I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers.

My inspiration comes from everywhere, just walking down the street and I never know where it's going to come from, so I keep a notebook with me at all times and the only criteria for anything making it into that notebook is if it stops me in my tracks for even an instant, if it catches my eye or my ear and I just write it down.

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing