Of Course, You Can't Legislate For How

Obviously One Of The Things That Poets From Northern Ireland And Beyond - Had To Try To Make Sense Of Was What Was Happening On A Day-to-day Political Level.

I Believe That These Devices Like Repetition And Rhyme Are Not Artificial, That They're Not Imposed, Somehow, On The Language.

On The Other Hand, At Some Level The Mass Of Unresolved Issues In Northern Ireland Does Influence The Fact That There Are So Many Good Writers In The Place.

The Point Of Poetry Is To Be Acutely Discomforting, To Prod And Provoke, To Poke Us In The Eye, To Punch Us In The Nose, To Knock Us Off Our Feet, To Take Our Breath Away.

There's Very Little Of The Intentional About The Business Of Writing Poetry, As Least As Far As I Can See.