Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

Considering the wealth of poetic drama that has come down to us from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is surprising that so little of any value has been added since.

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

A poem with grandly conceived and executed stanzas, such as one of Keats's odes, should be like an enfilade of rooms in a palace: one proceeds, with eager anticipation, from room to room.

The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.