I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

How would you prepare to die on a perfect April evening?

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.