I write a lot, and then forget what I've written, and then come back to it and say, "Not bad, I should do something with this!"

I think that the people who really accomplish things in this world have to have a little bit of crazy in them.

I like when a poem ends on its "receipts," meaning it gives me something tactile or tangible to dwell on as I exit the reading experience. So I strive to end my own poems that way as well.

I write to be recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self - all of those different aspects of it.

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

Poetry is such an ancient art, and I consider myself young within that art.

Only after my father's death could I speak my own individual truths about him. In a sense, I had to turn him into a character, a figure I could control through language.

Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.

I lived a life I knew I had to hide My father's edicts resolutely grim.

Editing is work, and it's hard to do while working on one's own writing.

Don't confuse your mentor with your buddies. Unlike the latter, your mentor isn't contented with where you're in life right now...

Hope is a passion for the possible.

There is so much to see and learn here that I often find I'm not blinking in case I miss anything. I have to use artificial tears to moisten my eyes.

Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.

Life is worth being lived but not worth being discussed all the time.

The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.

to fight for each minute is to fight for what is possible within yourself, so that your life and your death will not be like theirs.

There are even many huts built entirely of the universal aloe.

Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe that’s why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden.