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

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

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

I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.

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.

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

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.