I have some weak poems in that new collection, which is why I'm not ready to send the collection out yet.

The crows live in the world like you do. They are part of nature.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

I look at my young students, and I no longer have the sense that, oh, I'm the authority and they have to meet a certain standard. It's like, oh, look at these young ones. They've got such a hard road in front of them. I don't envy them having life ahead of them.

I'm not sure why my muse is female, except when I am deliberately playing against that figure.

When you're a female poet, would you, therefore, invoke a male muse? When nuns get consecrated into their vocations, they become brides of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. In these symbolic actions, rather than in physical actions, where a male reaches sexuality or participates in intimate exchanges, if one uses a different term - there's often a heterosexual figuring that takes place. The male poet invokes a beautiful female muse. The virginal nun consecrated invokes the male bridegroom, Christ.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.