I live in New Jersey now, which always gets a bad rap here and there, but I must say, I enjoy living here too

On the other hand, at some level the mass of unresolved issues in Northern Ireland does influence the fact that there are so many good writers in the place.

I'm sure 50 percent of television ads use rhyme

Of course, you can't legislate for how people are going to read.

The ground swell is what’s going to sink you as well as being what buoys you up. These are clichés also, of course, and I’m sometimes interested in how much one can get away with.

Form is a straitjacket in the way that a straitjacket was a straitjacket for Houdini.

That's one of the great things about poetry; one realises that one does one's little turn - that you're just part of the great crop, as it were.