There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. ~from the poem "Digging

Behaviour that's admired is the path to power among people everywhere.

Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland - it operates not as a class system, but a caste system.

The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.

Im a firm believer in learning by heart.

When I was teaching, I gave a lot of my mind and anxiety to it. There was always something clenched and anxious in me until the classes were over.