Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.