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I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.

Writing poetry, which for me was then saying how I felt about this and that, didn't help me to understand the world I lived in.

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

I see life as increasingly complex, vivid, colorful, crazy, chaotic. That's the world I write about... the world I live in.

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

I think poetry always lives its life, and people come to it and people go away from it, 'people' in the sense of larger numbers of people. It's as though you begin to think that poetry is a resource, and that at certain times people seem to need it or want it or can find sustenance in it, and at other times they can't.

For better or worse, poetry is my life.

I feel very connected to poets across the country.

I like poems that inspire, that make us think and reflect. It's like putting love into the world for whoever picks it up.