Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.

A writer is not different from a reader, in that the common ragbag of orthodoxies and assumptions is what a poet has to work with as well.

I've nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time.

In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.