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" Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share. "

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" I read 'Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were. Later, I realised that Stevenson was interested in sequels, and I wondered whether he would have gone back to it had he lived longer. "

" I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time. "

" Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels. "

" But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems. "

" If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful. "

" Well, it's a badge of honour for any self-respecting poet to be criticized by Auberon Waugh. But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. "

" I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme. "

" I'm also a great believer in the dream life; that while we're asleep, a deep subconscious connection is made about our profoundest fears, hopes, loves, losses, dreads and desires. "

" Each sudden gust of light explains itself as flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear. "

" These places, and the ancient things you know, You won't know soon. I'm working on it now.' "

" I'm not precisely saying that a really good board meeting at the MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Coucil) makes me want to go and write poetry, but there is a pleasure in doing that sort of thing well. "

" I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental. "

" Poetry is at the centre of my life, too, emotionally speaking, and intellectually speaking - it's just that I'm one of those people who enjoy doing other stuff as well. "

" In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry. "

" I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry. "

" I've found a different way to scent the air: already it's a by-word for despair. "

" If people connect me with the Romantics in general, they probably connect me most with Keats. But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others. "

" I've always thought that the balance between the side of my mind that knows what it is doing and the side that really hasn't got a clue has to be carefully maintained because if you write too knowingly then you get chilly, and if you write too unknowingly you write bollocks that nobody else can understand. "

" I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable. "

" But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others. "

" But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. "

" I'm an early bird, partly because I like to have some quiet time and partly because by 9am emails begin arriving, the phone starts ringing and I have dragons to kill of one sort or another. "

" I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time. "

" You see the names of places roundabout? They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out. "