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.

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

The heart grows brutal feeding on fantasies.

Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.

The last thing a young artist should do in poetry or any other field is think about whats in style, whats current, what are the trends. Think instead of what you like to read, what do you admire, what you like to listen to in music. What do you like to look at in architecture? Try to make a poem that has some of those qualities.

In jazz, as in poetry, there is always that play between what’s regular and what’s wild. That has always appealed to me.