Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

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

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems

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

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

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.

I see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.