I felt implicated in American affairs.Outraged at the blatant lies about Iraqs involvement in al Qaeda, at the regimes arrogance and stupidity, Guantnamo Bay and all the rest of it. But the poems at the start of District and Circle Anahorish 1944, The Aerodromearent particularly aimed as criticism. On the contrary, there's a recognition of the big contribution to world order made in Europe during World War II.

In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.

If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.

No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. Nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.

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

I don't miss teaching. I'm learning to take my time for myself.

Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.