What writing does is to reveal.

I think if you put something in a file that says "war poems" or "love poems" that you already restrict the way in which the poem might move.

I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.

Libraries are where it all begins.

We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there's a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry.poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.

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

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.