I'm from Chicago, so the Chicago working-class poets still mean a great deal to me.

I don't just want to talk to the choir. I want to sit down and be respectful of the people who are most unlike me, to get them to hear me and think. It doesn't mean you're going to change them right there, but just so they can hear you and what you're saying.

As an artist, I have to be the ambassador of everything.

When I lost my father, I thought I learned about grief and transition. However, nobody tells you what it's like to lose your mother. They don't tell you that you're going to feel like an orphan at whatever age you are as an adult.

I think that we need to measure how we give dollars to libraries by need. And the communities that are poor, in my opinion, should get more because you have to do more outreach.

If you're going to write about the river, you've got to get in.

I don't like to go into subways, because I always see them [ mice]. They are like my naguales [kindred animal spirits]. They follow me. I have literally stepped off of a plane in Phoenix and gotten my bag and stepped out on the curb and they'll be a big desert rat walking right in front of me.