I suppose that as you grow older some sense of an accumulating oeuvre is unavoidable.
Michael LongleyThe gap between verse and poetry is enormous. Between good poetry and good prose the gap is much narrower
Michael LongleyThe job has left me with a healthy disregard for what you might call Public Life. I have no desire now to go to receptions, to be seen at gatherings of the great and the good, to stand and be bored to death by men in grey suits.
Michael LongleyFor me the form, the stanzaic shape, is an endorsement, proof that I'm engaged with the Latin or Greek at an original level, that my versions are explorations.
Michael Longley