A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

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

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

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 play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.

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