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.

Nothing is as universal as some good scatalogical humor. I try to shift the frame in which people think about poetry from being distant or "sacred" to being more human, because then I think it becomes easier to feel like poetry belongs to us, is for us, is from us.

Things that I have a hard time being able to fully grasp, sometimes writing the poem helps me work through it. Or I get to the end of the poem and I still haven't figured anything out, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

I want [my daughter] to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind.

Every moment I choose to write about is one I have deemed important enough to dwell inside of and share with others. I am holding this moment up to the light and saying, "Wow, will you look at that?"

Nothing is as universal as some good scatalogical humor. Even if it means having to be a little silly or cheeky, I think it is worth it.

Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.