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

For 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.

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.

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

A good poem is not completely a poem until it has received a critical response that grows out of the poem in an almost biological way.

I 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.

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.