One of the very first poems I wrote was Docker That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic and one of the sturdiest was Requiem for the Croppies, written 50 years after 1916 [the year of the Easter Rising]. Being responsible and what it means, what it demands, have indeed preoccupied me maybe too much. But this is it, this is the thing, this is what you're up against.

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.

I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

All I know is a door into the dark

Harvard created wonderful conditions for me as a writerbut the writing was done, almost entirely, when I got home.

The appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year.

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