A visual experience is vitalizing. Whereas to write great poetry, to draw continuously on one's inner life, is not merely exhausting, it is to keep alight a consuming fire.

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.

To hurry through the rise and fall of a fine, full sentence is like defying the role of time in human life.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.

It's women writing about all kinds of things. They write their memoirs and life stories; some women write poetry. Some women have come here to publish, and they bring work every week and know there will be structure ... essays, poems, stories, histories, finance books. They're all across the map. I wouldn't label the writing anything except that it's women's words. And men's words too, now.