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.

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

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

I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.

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

Generally speaking, rhyme is the marker for the end of a line. The first rhyme-word is like a challenge thrown down, which the poem itself has to respond to.