It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.

When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

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

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.