I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years - or longer.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

At the very beginning when I begin writing a poem I try not to think of the audience or anyone at all except for trying to get at the very center of what is driving that poem. In a way it's like analyzing myself.

People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.

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

I write short stories, and I wrote a play.