It seems to me the structure of the Quartets is too imposed.

Frost isn’t exactly despised but not enough people have worked out what a brilliant poet he was.

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.

What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up

Your average pop song or film is a very sophisticated item, with very sophisticated ways of listening and viewing that we have not really consciously developed over the years - because we were having such a good time

If the poem has no obvious destination, there's a chance that we'll be all setting off on an interesting ride.

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