To try to expunge an individual's history is a terrible violation.

I have learned so much from working with other poets, travelling and reading with them, spending days discussing poems in progress. There is the sense that we are all, as writers, part of something which is more powerful than any of us.

I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there.

When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

We are creatures of story.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.