The gap between verse and poetry is enormous. Between good poetry and good prose the gap is much narrower

When I'm assembling a book I concentrate as though I were writing a poem. A truly imagined arrangement will indicate gaps and generate new poems. I re-read the new poems in my folder in the hope that this might happen.

I hardly ever look at my published books.

I'm not the kind of poet who arranges treasure-hunts to please the academics and keep them busy. Poetry should be surprising in deeper ways.

Weddings and funerals have so much in common (except that in Ireland funerals are more fun - better food, better drink): at both, our senses are sharpened and we register much more than usual - a striking face or hair-do, the wind's behaviour, a bird singing.

I do feel that a poem needs not just space, but, ideally, space around that space - space for meditation, reverie, subliminal link-ups. I sense that poetry happens at a level above or below intelligence. It doesn't come into being at a purely rational level.

I'm not against ambition and reach, but if you can say it in four lines, why waste your time saying it in more? Challenge the world by all means, but it's bad for your poetry to take steroids.