I do like celebrating women, I do like celebrating different lifestyles and choices and people and it makes me happy when others find my work empowering.

Poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me. I like to poem my way through tricky questions and ideas. That's about the only consistent thread through my poem-creation process.

I often tell people to stop being afraid of writing bad poetry, or bad anything. I think that a lot of times, when people claim that they have writer's block, or that they get stuck, it's just because they're scared of writing bad things.

Ever hear that expression, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.

I think you can perform any poem. But what I believe is that the best examples of spoken word poetry I've ever seen, are spoken word poems that, when you see them, you're aware of the fact they need to be performed. That there's something about that poem that you would not be able to understand if you were just reading it on a piece of paper.

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you've done something wrong but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks. Someone will come to sing into these empty spaces.