One arrives at a recognition that one needs to be distracted.

I don't like crows. In the poem "C," crows are predatory, killing other birds and so forth. But in my morning walks, there were always crows, particularly at certain times of the year. And they're very aggressive, very visible and loud. They're not at all likable, but they have to be dealt with. They are part of the picture, the art in the morning. You cannot deny their reality.

Just because suddenly you have a sabbatical doesn't mean that the writing occasion comes to you.

The things that I dislike passionately, I have come to realize, are also part of me.

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

I guess my writing through time has focused on a number of dimensions that reflect separately on the meaning and social place of the female body.