I would like people to come into my Dreamworld and then choose to stay.

Those who try to obliterate the past are injuring the present.

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.

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

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

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.

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