Every Monday morning I try to remember to say "Thank you, Lord. I'm not at the Senior Staff Meeting."

I hardly ever look at my published books.

Most poets' revisions are disastrous. They buckle and dent what was originally forged at a red-hot heat.

There'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.

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 was the first Arts Council official in the archipelago to do something for what you might call indigenous music.

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.