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" Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost. "

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" I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art. "

" I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson. "

" My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do. "

" A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties. "

" I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound. "

" Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up? "

" Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally. "

" Writing in a strict form can surprise you. "

" I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature. "

" I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me. "

" I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were. "

" Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet. "

" I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century. "

" Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry. "

" I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas. "

" I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings. "

" When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good. "

" I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless. "

" Many varieties of sonnet, of course, have been written over the ages. "

" There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic. "

" I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them. "

" Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly. "

" Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions. "

" I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy. "