I've always written all my life and when I was very young I developed an interest in poetry.

So I really began as a failed poet - although when I first wanted to be a writer I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

From my music training I knew that some Spanish rhythms apart 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it sounds as it surely should sound.

When I really want to be soothed and reminded of why people bother to fiddle with sentences I often read poetry.

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

I was a visual artist primarily and a writer even from a very young age. I wrote a lot of stories and poetry and... I had a desire to create always. And I always had a desire to show my work.

I work on words mostly toward them being poetry or short stories and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well and it's an ongoing creative assignment.

If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong beautiful form to me and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.

I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play it has a poignancy to it.

It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.