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

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

Poetry is language in orbit.

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.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.