Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have.

My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy

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.

The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience - anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form.

You have me like a drawing, erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.

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

Where I lived - winter and hard earth.I sat in my cold stone roomchoosing tough words, granite, flint,to break the ice. My broken heart -I tried that, but it skimmed,flat, over the frozen lake.She came from a long, long way,but I saw her at last, walking,my daughter, my girl, across the fields,In bare feet, bringing all spring's flowersto her mother's house. I swearthe air softened and warmed as she moved,the blue sky smiling, none too soon,with the small shy mouth of a new moon.