I feel compassionate, because I know [students] all have to go down this road of suffering and it's going to be tough.

I only submit the poems I think are the strongest.

I always wanted to be pretty as a girl, although I believed it was not possible.

Saul Bellow has that character in Henderson the Rain King say: "I want, I want, I want!"9 I remember reading this passage years ago and thinking, yes, that's the human.

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

The consciousness of one's physical self had to be repressed because, socially, the female body was so visible, an ongoing provocation and incitement of specular curiosity and fascination.

I do want to do the entire alphabet. There's in [Walker's Alphabet] a poem called "A Life" in that grouping. I was going to change that title to "A."