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

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.

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 had no idea, when I was writing early on, that my poems would be published or read by anyone, never mind people I knew or would meet. I just wrote urgently - naïvely, I suppose, looking back.

At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

The fewer moving parts, the better." "Exactly. No truer words were ever spoken in the context of engineering.

Dream the life you desire. Then live it with passion and love.

Very happy or unhappy, people disappear.

The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire.

There is a huge difference between danger and fear.

I think that the most exciting thing is to find a tool, like an art, with an opportunity to share. Real roots come from everywhere in the world. Why call is congress? Because it is a congress.

That's the way it goes. Some things happen and some things don't. This one is obviously just wasn't meant to be. Except deep down... I still believe it was.

I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my grey friar's frock, and all shall be well again.

You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.