I believe that these devices like repetition and rhyme are not artificial, that they're not imposed, somehow, on the language.

I do a lot of readings.

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.

One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.

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

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

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.