I am open to squeezing in whatever I can in this wonderful life. Instead of asking, "Is that all there is?" I seem, lately, to be always saying, "Wow!"

My advice to my younger self would have been, "Chill. Concentrate on the poems. Everything else will work itself out."

I don't know if there are topics that I unconsciously avoid, but as soon as they pop up in my writing, I try to take on those topics, whether or not I publish the poems.

Unlike Woody Allen, I would be happy to be part of any (poetry) club that would have me.

Over the years, I became more and more interested in the forms and techniques in which things could be said.

After my marriage ended, I had an urge to skip that part of my life completely in terms of poetry, not publish anything at all about it.

Writing is performative - and while, yes, the words in essence will be there "forever," poems are often about ecstatic moments rather than trying to pin down a particular truth of an event.

I love going to movie theaters, even in the era of movies on-demand and Netflix. When you are in a movie theater, no one can reach you by phone or other means.

If you are my friend and say to me, "Please don't write about this," I won't.

The spoken word community was significant in making me want to write accessible and urgent poems. Bob Holman, in particular, was an impressive figure.

Jean Valentine and Jane Cooper were my professors at Sarah Lawrence College - and they were uncompromised in their art. They gave me models of how to live one's life as a poet.

I Am excited, this is a new day and one I have never experienced nor will again. What fantabulous miracles will show up today!

I wanted to be a teacher.

Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes.

Usually I do a practice in the morning first and then meditate. I'm fortunate that I can do it in a car, in a bus, in a plane.

We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.

If you don't wear lipstick, I can't talk to you. You need to have lips - they are important for getting men.

One reason, of course, as a Christian, I believe the Bible is the word of God. I take the Bible as the standard.

The euro Titanic has now hit the iceberg - and there simply aren't enough lifeboats to go round.

It is the fact that the electrons cannot all get on top of each other that makes tables and everything else solid.

If the national park is, as Lord Bryce suggested, the best idea America has ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea.