"A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does."

"You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does."

"Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts."

"Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back."

"I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist."

"I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry."

"Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."

"Yes, it must be something that goes very well with my voice, let's say something that I understand that this would be good communication with the others, and I don't pretend for instance, to look for music that would be something that doesn't go with my personality."