Quote

Even though I was a reluctant reader in junior high and high school, I found myself writing poems in the back of class.

In my late teenage years, I developed a real passion for it, and wrote a lot of poetry.

I grew up in New York City. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school, my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry.

My readers at that time were still men of letters; but there had to be other people waiting to read my poems.

I was a 16-year-old girl at one point, so of course I wrote poetry.

I've always been a fan of poetry. I grew up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Beat poets. I really followed that stuff for a while. I just love the way people threw words around like they were painting.

I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died, and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion, but in fact, what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

I'm a poet, and I spent my life in poetry.

I was completely devoted to reading and books from the age of seven. It took until I was 18 to have the confidence to write poetry.