If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.

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

Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn't know how to talk or negotiate.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

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.

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.