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.

I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?

We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there's a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry.poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry

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