The ground swell is what’s going to sink you as well as being what buoys you up. These are clichés also, of course, and I’m sometimes interested in how much one can get away with.

I'm sure 50 percent of television ads use rhyme

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

Obviously one of the things that poets from Northern Ireland and beyond - had to try to make sense of was what was happening on a day-to-day political level.

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

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

The ground swell is what’s going to sink you as well as being what buoys you up. These are clichés also, of course, and I’m sometimes interested in how much one can get away with.