I work hard to make the poems as good as they can be, and if they're not good enough I scrap them. I find it difficult after a gap of a few years to tinker - I'm more likely to destroy.
Michael LongleyI think a philistine environment should be bracing for young artists. You have to make your own enjoyment, you've got to make your own art.
Michael LongleyThere's always a danger of writers believing their own publicity. We live in a world of puff and solicited blurb, a world of favours and backscratching.
Michael LongleyI was the first Arts Council official in the archipelago to do something for what you might call indigenous music.
Michael Longley