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.

It's not as if I'm trying to write crossword puzzles to which one might find an answer at the back of the book or anything like that.

We simply have not kept in touch with poetry

I certainly am interested in accessibility, clarity, and immediacy.

What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up

I suppose for whatever reason I actively welcome being put down, something which perhaps goes back to my upbringing - that accusation of not being worthy which could be laid at one's door.

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