Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.

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

Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.

I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.