I feel the fear touches on something deeper. A sense perhaps of, "My life is speeding past me and I can't get a handle on it."

I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet.

If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.

When you speak words that are relevant to people, they automatically shut up and you know you are in the presence of some very magical words. It's a gift when someone can listen and be quiet and not interrupt.

You don't have to be the specialist on everything. You can try to inform yourself.

Mom used to walk with me for something like two or three miles to get to the day-old bakery. They had those machines where you buy doughnuts, those vending machines with the long johns and doughnuts. We would buy those bagels and pastries because that was our treat. And come back with shopping bags of these sweets, and who knows what was in it? That was what we could afford that could feed that many people.

I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.