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.

Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.

One thing that I believe is that every time I write something, I am taking the time to celebrate. Even if I am writing a sad story or an angry poem, I am still giving those stories my time and attention.

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.

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.

One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.

I write poetry to figure things out. It's what I use as a navigating tool in my life, so when there's something that I just can't understand, I have to "poem" my way through it. For that reason I write a lot about family, because my family confuses me and I'm always trying to figure them out. I write a lot about love, because love is continually confusing in all of its many glorious aspects.