Poems Are A Hotline To Our Hearts,

While Also, Importantly, Not Wanting To Dumb It Down Or Pretend The Days Of 'difficult' Poetry Are Over, Because We Live In A Pluralist Culture And There's Room For 'difficult' Poetry Alongside Rap And Everything Else. And Poetry Won't Be For Everyone, But Everyone Should Have The Choice.

But Wordsworth Is The Poet I Admire Above All Others.

I Deeply Adored My Mum. She Was An Extraordinary Person, Even For The Prejudice I'm Likely To Have. She Was Beautiful, Amusing, A Tremendous Elaborator Of Things Into Comic Proportions And Extravagant In Her Imagination.

Like A Lot Of People, For A Long Time I Thought That The Road To Hell Is Paved With Bad Sequels.

I Get Up At 5.30am, Sluice Myself And Have Two Weetabix And Some Mint Tea, Before Starting To Write By 6am.