All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

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.

I never think of my audience when I write a poem. I try to write out of whatever is haunting me; in order for a poem to feel authentic, I have to feel I'm treading on very dangerous ground, which can mean that the resulting revelations may prove hurtful to other people. The time for thinking about that kind of guilt or any collective sense of responsibility, however, occurs much later in the creative process, after the poem is finished.

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.

To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.