Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place.

The language has got to be fully alive - I can't bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don't see why any reader should put up with it.

My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

Mourning Ruby is not a flat landscape: it is more like a box with pictures painted on every face. And each face is also a door which opens, I hope, to take the reader deep into the book.

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.