I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.

However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody.