You've read some of the poems in this new unpublished book [Walker's Alphabet], e.g., the poem "C." I have a number of poems whose titles are letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F.

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.

The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.

People know the value of money so they chase it. I wonder if they know the worth of love.

We owe it to the victims of the suicide bombers who struck London on 7 July 2005 to find out how the attacks happened and to learn the lessons that will spare lives in the future.

I am a brush, the car is my track and the artist my canvas

The iPad! What is better designed than that? I read magazines on it, I play Scrabble. I use it for everything.

Our mother Eve, who tasted of the tree, Giving to Adam what she held most dear, Was simply good, and had no power to see.

Burnt child fire dredth.

Stay away from girls who cry a lot or who look like they get pregnant easily or have careers.

No matter how old you become, I'll always hold your hand tenderly. just like how I held it on the day that you were born. I love you, son.

Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will, On whom it will not, so: yet still 'tis just.