I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing.

But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror.

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

Best to say that once a poem is finished I trust it to make its way, and I trust readers will find their way to it and through it, if the thing has got itself rightly expressed.

History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

There is not built-in meaning to anything, we are free to add any meaning we choose to give it.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.