The country that I was coming from, the island I was in, hadn't been written about, really. So I thought that I virtually had it all to myself, including the language that was spoken there, which was a French Creole, and a landscape that is not recorded, really, and the people.

I have no curiosity. I'm an island boy.

There's always a need at a critical time for poetry.

What is taught in schools generally in the West Indies is that if something is your thing, it's better than anybody else's because it's yours. It's extremely provincial and also damaging. You prevent people from learning things. The biggest absurdity would be, 'Don't read Shakespeare because he was white.'

When I was young I didn't care about education, just money and box office.

An early attempt at education choice was charter schools. These were meant to attract the best and brightest students and provide them a level of education they often could not find in their local school districts. The problem is that, of the thousands of charter schools, many are outright failures.

I used to lie in bed and imagine I was performing at the Albert Hall, not that I'd ever been there. I took lessons with a German teacher when I was quite young. But it turned out I had a very high soprano voice, which I didn't like at all.

Money buys the most experienced teachers, less-crowded classrooms, high-quality teaching materials, and after-school programs.