I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more.

Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.

You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.

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.

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.