I've been leading newsrooms for a while now and it's been an honor serving as Editor in Chief of N.J. but I really think that my best shot at moving the needle in politics is by getting close to it - by reading reporting tweeting and writing.

You know the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.

I don't really like labels in politics but I will gladly accept the label of conservatism.

The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.

It's really very simple Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you're going to get it to these people.

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing economics politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture that's really entertainment-based.

The older I've got the less I find myself going back and re-reading or really reading new fiction or poetry.

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.

Publishing the lyric books poetry or comics of other musicians I know. That's the thing I really want to break into!

I'd never really been content with just churning out these slim volumes every three or four years. I've always tried to think of poetry as an active ingredient in the language rather than just something that appears between the covers of thin books.

Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things but to me they're more visual than oral and they almost really belong on the wall rather than in a book. I haven't the least idea of where poetry is going.

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.

No what I should really like to do right now in the full blaze of lights before this illustrious assembly is to shower every one of you with gifts with flowers with offerings of poetry - to be young once more to ride on the crest of the wave.

Any long work in which poetry is persistent be it epic or drama or narrative is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.

I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things and yet I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.

I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language though so I am always aware of every word's meaning or multiple meanings.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction but often it's really just about the money the perceived prestige.

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats almost 100 years old now and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

Bad quirky poetry might be better than some of the good stuff because it really comes from the heart.

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth to learn how to do that to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

I don't think rap really fits in to 'American Idol' in the sense that I believe rap is an art form in itself more akin to poetry more akin to drama if you will.

I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.

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.