My muse is very often, in my mind, a nagger. She nags me.

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.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Respect for another man's opinion is worthy. It is the realization that any opinion is valuable, for it is the sign of a rational being.

I'm a nerd and you bet I love what I do. I am so damn good at it.

I'm not actually a very keen performer. I like putting shows together. I like putting events together.

Im a shy person. I contradict my own profession, because Im an introvert in a very glamorous world.

Nothing changes like changes, because nothing changes but the changes.

As long as Christian life remains our life we will not understand the Christ of the New Testament. You are not your own.

Michigan is very racially separated and the city of Detroit itself is 84 percent African-American and the surrounding suburbs are 86 percent White.

To know and not to do is not yet to know.

I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing.