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.

What will you do now with the gift of your left life?

If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it.

I always wanted a child. Being a mother is the central thing in my life.

If we think of what's up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it's very frightening.

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.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems