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

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.

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

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

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

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