Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper plate and paint the assemblage and see it on the refrigerator - that has always been strong in me.

My poems - like my family life, my life with friends, my teaching - these things express who I am. I don't feel any extra responsibilities or relishes or necessary evils in them. They are part of who I am, with all of those customary desires and doubts, purposes and confusions that come along with being a particular person.

Deciding to remember, and what to remember, is how we decide who we are.

Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them.

I have always been thinking about the sounds and shades and aromas of words - fitting them together or disrupting their customary march - more or less every second of my life, waking and sleeping.

To talk about the reality of life here and the work that you do here at the university.

Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper plate and paint the assemblage and see it on the refrigerator - that has always been strong in me.