Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound.

It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.

I think feminism means what it has always meant - women want to use all their gifts, all their talents and be judged impartially for them. I don't think feminism has ever meant anything else.

You can't be creative and still be a good girl.

Allow me to put the record straight. I am forty-six and have been for some years past.

Poetry is the inner life of a culture, its nervous system, its deepest way of imagining the world. A culture that ignores its poets, chokes off its nervous system and becomes mortally ill.

The dilemma is that if one does not risk anything one risks even more.