The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way - engaging, compelling, even beautiful.

There are mornings when everything brims with promise, even my empty cup.

Sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can't read the address.

There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during the process of writing.

All night, this soft rain from The distant past. No wonder I sometimes Waken as a child.

I like the idea of there being times when even words cost so much you used them sparingly. I have known a lot of old men and women who talked as if they were paying Western Union by the word.

Turtle has just one plan at a time, and every cell buys into it.

This evening, I sat by an open window and read till the light was gone and the book was no more than a part of the darkness.

When she left me I stood out in the thunderstorm, hoping to be destroyed by lightning. It missed, first left, then right.

I farm a little plot of things to say, with not much frontage on the busy road.

Keeping a journal is like taking good care of one’s heart.

One is easily fooled by that which one loves.

Everything I do as a mother builds on a foundation of love and compassion.

I feel like I gave my son to this country in an illegal and immoral war. I'll never get him back.

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

Every time I listened to Lux Radio Theatre, I wanted to vomit.

The importance to the world of what we scribblers write is in doubt, I would think.

There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.

When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.

There are times, where I am sad for the public. I am sad, because they do not get to know the brilliance that is Sebastian Janikowski.

If you can't understand the blues, you don't know much