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.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

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

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

Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally.

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

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