I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now

Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

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

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.