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

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.

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

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

For whatever reason, people, including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading, do not read poetry

The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.