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!

Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither.

If you can't be free, be a mystery.

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

I write short stories, and I wrote a play.

If the poem is so moving that even if you have no experience in that particular setting be it 1920's Harlem let's say. You still are so moved that you can put yourself in that position. That means that the writer has managed to go beyond the personal and touch the humanity in all of us and it's really a blast to read it because I realize how that this does hold true for the truly great poems.