On The Other Hand, At Some Level

Last Year I Was A Judge For A Prize In England, The T.s. Eliot Prize, So I Read Everything That Was Published In England Last Year.

The Ground Swell Is What’s Going To Sink You As Well As Being What Buoys You Up. These Are Clichés Also, Of Course, And I’m Sometimes Interested In How Much One Can Get Away With.

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

What I Try To Do Is To Go Into A Poem - And One Writes Them, Of Course, Poem By Poem - To Go Into Each Poem, First Of All Without Having Any Sense Whatsoever Of Where It's Going To End Up

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.