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

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.

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

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

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.

Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.

When I had no roof I made audacity my roof.