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

Words want to find chimes with each other, things want to connect.

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.

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

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

Of course, you can't legislate for how people are going to read.