Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.

If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.

I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us.

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.