Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.

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

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

I would be nowhere without martial arts. It's a passion.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.