If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

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

The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful... to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself.

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.

Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker.

At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

All I know is a door into the dark