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

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.

Last year I was a judge for a prize in England, the T.S. Eliot Prize, so I read everything that was published in England last year.

We simply have not kept in touch with poetry

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.

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.