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" I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life. "

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" More people than ever are slowly but surely turning their ears toward poetry. "

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" 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. "

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" My father's a preacher, my mother's a teacher, thus I rhyme. "