Ever since I was little, I’ve loved making hand-made cards and presents and arts & crafts for people. The book gives me a similar experience. I love being able to hold this object in my hands and say, “This is mine. I made this. It is a gift for you.” I love that feeling. Especially since this particular object contains ten years worth of my poems.

Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.

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.

For some reason there's this myth that creativity - [especially] in terms of creative writing - is a gift you either have, or you don't. So when people first start writing, if they write something that's not very good, or if they try and it's difficult, they go, "Oh, I guess I don't have it." That doesn't seem very fair, you have to try and you have to work at it. If we get scared of one bad poem and quit, that's not doing anybody any good.

Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.

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 think that poetry is an act of celebration, that anytime you're writing a poem, it means that you're celebrating something, even if it's a sad poem, if it's an angry poem, a political poem or anything at all. The fact that you're taking the time and energy to pick up this thing and hold it to the light, and say, "Let's take some time to consider this," means that you've deemed it worthy enough to spend time on - which, in my opinion, is celebrating.