Seeing yourself as responsible for the quality of your relationship, as a prime mover in your life, I think is a bold, amazing step.

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.

There is something in me maybe someday to be written; now it is folded, and folded, and folded, like a note in school.

I have never thought I could take it, not even for the children. It is all I have wanted to do, to stand between them and and pain. But I come from a long line of women who put themselves first.

I think this is true for all artists. My senses are very important to me.

Writing or making anything-a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake-has self-respect in it. You're working. You're trying. You're not lying down on the ground, having given up.

Every poet I know - although there may be some I don't know who lead very different lives, who maybe live in the country and don't teach - tends to be just like the rest of us: just really busy, really overcommitted.