I am like a table that eats its own legs off because it’s fallen in love with the floor.

When fiction writers like my poems I feel like I've hit the jackpot.

The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't follow it. You'd have to have a pretty fantastic surveillance system to track its migration.

Place is extremely important to my work because I am always pulling landscape imagery into my poems.

I have no precise idea of who makes up my readership. I'm surprised when I discover people have read my poems at all.

Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue.

One of the reasons poetry is such an amazing genre to work with is because it constantly reinvents itself and re-negotiates its terms with the reader.

One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer.

I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that does something positive for animals.

I place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard work.

I like it when poems are challenging, when they concern matters important and personal to the author.

Roads remain the essential network of the non-virtual world. They are the infrastructure upon which almost all other infrastructure depends. They are the paths of human endeavor.

When Jesus was tempted, He didn’t debate the devil. He quoted Scripture: “It is written . . . It is written . . . It is written” (Matthew 4:4–10 NKJV). And each time the devil was defeated.

Revenge! The stupidest motive on earth, just an attempt to change history.

Uptown is for people who have already done something. Downtown is where they’re doing something now. I live uptown but I love downtown.

Never practice something you're good at. All it will lead to is one major strength with many downfalls.

There is no logical reason why thoughts, which have no substance, should have so much power over you, nor is there any reason why you should become their slave

I thought I would spend the rest of my life searching for little reminders of you.

The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhere to the subtle, contriving head.

Lord, to whom should we go? Thy words are the words of eternal life.

Without ships, we cannot live.