“Your friends, and your associates, and the people around you, and the environment that you live in, and the speakers around you - the speakers around you - and the communicators around you, are the poetry makers.If your mother tells you stories, she is a poetry maker.If your father says stories, he is a poetry maker.If your grandma tells you stories, she is a poetry maker.And that’s who forms our poetics.”

“A marriage, willy-nilly, requires you to trust that your spouse will tell your story truthfully and lovingly when you are no longer around to tell it yourself.”

“What is poetry? you ask, while fixing your blue pupil on mine.What is poetry! And you are asking me?Poetry...is you.”

“If you tell the story you will live the story. If you live the story you have to own the story. If you dont like the story your living, stop telling it.”

“Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, “how can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?”

“How poetic you are," she said. "I've a notion that poetry is the highest form of self-deception.”