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.

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.

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

Living at that pitch, on that edge, is something which many poets engage in to some extent.

I was born in Northern Ireland in 1951. I lived most of my life there until 1986 or 1987

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.