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

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.

I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

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.