You can be an artist, work hard for your work and also share while trying to create community with other artists.

It's really hard for me to remember all of the places that I've been but I can remember all of the delicious meals that I've ever eaten. I love traveling by way or stomach...and finding quiet time.

Think it's so unfair when people think that you're not a "real artist" unless you're getting paid for it....I personally know so many poets that work a 9 to 5 in a cubicle and come home and write poetry. Their poetry is just as powerful and moving as anything that I've ever written, if not more.

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.

Poetry is like pooping. If there is a poem inside of you, it has to come out. Sometimes it can be really difficult and take longer than you'd like (it may even be painful), but other times it can be really easy and happen much faster than you expected. But either way - it is important, and it feels so much better when it's done.

Fingers interlocked like a beautiful accordion of flesh or a zipper of prayer

When words become a poem, it makes sense to me, but I don't know how to explain to someone why the words are the way they are. It's just the logic of the poem to me.