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It's not easy to define poetry.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.

Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.

I don't try to call myself a poet. But I know that my stuff is pretty literal, in that the themes are pretty simple and on the surface.

Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully to others. But many people feel put off by the terms of poetry, its odd vocabulary, its notorious difficulty.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.