At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

I've written poems about gifts. Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.

The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.

Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

Soyinka's Death at Dawn, Auden's Musée des Beaux Arts, Stevie Smith's Not Waving but Drowning and Wislawa Szymborska's Some People come to mind immediately. But there are plenty, plenty more that I enjoy.

Sometimes a word or an argument will trigger a poem.