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Poetry had great powers over me from my childhood, and today the poems live in my memory which I read at the age of 7 or 8 years and which drove me to desperate attempts at imitation.

The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.

I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have.

When I first started reading poetry, all the poets I read - Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier - were rhyme poets. That's what captured me.

Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.

My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.

Children seem naturally drawn to poetry - it's some combination of the rhyme, rhythm, and the words themselves.

I have always used a great variety of verse forms, especially in my poetry for children. I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.

Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.