The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now.

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 think a lot of people think I'm either unintelligent because I'm a very happy person and I have a lot of energy or that it's a fake happiness, like fake energy. I completely understand that because it's a lot to handle, and I am a very emotional human being.

I think I was always a curious kid.

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