When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is.
The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was.
My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.
Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.
Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.
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.