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" It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely. "

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" When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books. "

Norman MacCaig

Classroom

Nothing

Teacher

" But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person. "

" Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away. "

" When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man. "

" However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird. "

" I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century. "

" And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody. "

" There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books. "

" And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so. "

" I find it's impossible for me to read Proust. "

Norman MacCaig

Impossible

Find

" A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest. "

" When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous. "

" In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry. "

Norman MacCaig

Think

Doing

" And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it. "

" I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out. "

" I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that. "

" People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share. "

Norman MacCaig

Long

Days

" Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason. "

" I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now. "

" All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed. "

" Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood. "

Norman MacCaig

Who

Anybody

" But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true! "

" And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping. "

" I don't think of myself all the time. "

" I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry. "

" If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex. "

" I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry. "

" All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about. "

Norman MacCaig

People

Write

" When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me. "

Norman MacCaig

Nobody

Know

" I'm very gregarious, but I love being in the hills on my own. "