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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.