There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love….

Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead..

I'm much more capable of cutting back than of expanding. I've gotten very surgical about poems..

After I started publishing poetry I got to teach creative writing. Eventually I was promoted and even got tenure. But then I felt compelled to drop e….

From the beginning. I was a poem-writing child. I wrote little novels in my composition book when I was eight, nine years old..

Whether the poet is living or dead, they're part of our imaginative community..

I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it..

Poetry is a tree with very deep roots and while there may be excitement about this or that new little branch, you're not going to make anything origi….

My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movem….

Rhythms and sounds are often the first thing I hear and want in a poem, so I can't imagine trying to translate something without at least being able ….

I worked in an art gallery for a few years, doing administrative assistance stuff, and it exposed me to what the whole world of art dealers and the a….

People want poetry and need it - we need what's not honored by the corporate mentality that has taken over. It gives people a language for responding….

I'm trying to stay open to the idea that the Internet is not the evil foe of publishing but the handmaiden that will turn out to be a blessing for po….

It takes courage to get clear about what your vision of the work is and to be persistent about it and pursue it, whatever you're saying. I'm still in….

Spanish and English have such different music, and in my own poetry I feel much less drawn to fluid sounds than I do toward the hard sounds and rhyth….

I think we're always most interested in the things we're doing right now..

I love that people want to know about poetry. It's one of the ways of keeping alive..

People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and ins….

I think translation is an impossible job, and I admire the people who do it in a way that brings poetry to us that we wouldn't have access to..

There's always some reason not to be writing and I regret the times I give in to that, because then writing feels strange - I feel like I have to rei….

Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that..