EXCERPT FROM THE INTERVIEW

People have to understand a poem isn’t a leaf pressed between the pages of some anthology: a poem is a living, human voice. It’s the movement of a mind over an idea. Writers remind us of the most urgent concerns of whatever time we live in, and create empathy, helping us to understand what it feels like to be someone else. We tend to forget how fortunate we are to live in a place of such remarkable beauty, at a time in which human values are again being honored, and people are prepared to believe in really becoming a community.