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.

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.

We simply have not kept in touch with poetry

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

I do a lot of readings.

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

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