Poetry is a vocation. It is not a career but a calling.

My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is to inspire some future reader.

A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective.

Poetry takes place in time. It is a durational. Things take place in sequence.

I feel very much aware of my mortality. I'm here, and then I'm not. It's the same thing with everything else: the movie comes out, and then it's gone. Everything is changing all the time, and I'm not going to stress out and spend my entire time chasing something that ultimately doesn't exist.

Death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.

Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone asserting before me that I was dead.