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

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good.

I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.

You've got criminal courts and child welfare officials refusing to do their jobs and protect children so they can shift the cases over to family court where predatory professionals can turn a dirty buck off the atrocities committed against children.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.