If you were going to choose a way of making your way in this world and a place to start from, you might not choose poetry and you might not choose Huddersfield.

The ordinary can be absolutely miraculous.

I once stood in the middle of New York city watching my name go round the electronic zipper sign in Times Square and I felt pretty thrilled, but not quite as thrilled as I felt when I saw my name in the Examiner for the first time.

I intend 'Dämmerung' to be an ironic meditation on the financial rewards of poetry and a tragicomic lament on the passing of time and the changes in literary taste. The other poets mentioned are my poetic cohort from the U.K. I wrote the piece in situ, as it were, while making a television documentary about World War I in Germany.

It’s never going to be very mainstream. One reason is that poetry requires concentration, both on the part of the writer and the reader. But it’s kind of unkillable, poetry. It’s our most ancient artform and I think it’s more relevant today than ever, because it’s one person saying what they really believe.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet

And wonder, dread and war have lingered in that land where loss and love in turn have held the upper hand.