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."

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

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.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

Tying the know means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.

The fact that you are true child of God doesn't mean you will find gold on the floor when sweeping. You got to dig up the gold!

For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn't mean you're fantastic.

I'm the kind of woman that likes to enjoy herselves in peace.

I don't believe in simply accumulating money, but I have the luxury to say that, because I have enough for all my needs

It all depends on which side of the desk you're sitting on.

I always do my draft in long hand because even the ink is part of the flow.

We learn best in moments of enjoyment

Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.

Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral