Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly..

My soul, how will I recognize you if we meet?.

Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her pe….

There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you..

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good..

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that wit….

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature..

I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am alway….

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a s….

I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully p….

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic..

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas..