Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.

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

Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief.

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.

I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times.

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems