Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say, I cannot find the words to describe my hunch about them.

The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous. Take off from here.

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

The dotted line my father's ashplant made On Sandymount Strand Is something else the tide won't wash away.

Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

I drink to keep body and soul apart.

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