Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel.

I don't think my intelligence is naturally analytic or political.

I'm a firm believer in learning by heart.

Memory has always been fundamental for me. In fact, remembering what I had forgotten is the way most of the poems get started.

Death is a companion for all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we're aware of it or not, and it's not necessarily a terrible thing.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

To a billion people around the world surviving on just a dollar a day, the question of what to eat tonight is more about life and death than about recipes. The struggle of poor people around the globe weighs heavily on me, especially now that I am a mother, which is why I work with Oxfam.