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

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.

Living at that pitch, on that edge, is something which many poets engage in to some extent.

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

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

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.