I loved the illusion, the conviction, the desire - whatever you want to call it - that the words were agents rather than extensions of reality. That they made my life happen, rather than just recorded it happening.

It has always seemed to me a great honor to be called an Irish poet. I don't think I will ever lose that, but it's also a great honor to be a woman poet. I put those things together.

Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods.

. . . We love fog because it shifts old anomalies into the elements surrounding them. It gives relief from a way of seeing

I loved the illusion, the conviction, the desire - whatever you want to call it - that the words were agents rather than extensions of reality. That they made my life happen, rather than just recorded it happening.

Sleep in a world, your final sleep has woken

Poetry begins where language starts: in the shadows and accidents of one person’s life.