When We Are Touched By Something It's

I Loved To Write When I Was A Child. I Wrote, But I Always Thought It Was Something That You Did As A Child, Then You Put Away Childish Things.

It's The Combination Of The Intimate And The Public That I Find So Exciting About Being Poet Laureate.

Libraries Are Where It All Begins.

My Best Times Are Midnight To Six Actually. I'll Leaf Through My Notebooks And If Something Catches My Eye And I Feel Like I Want To Transfer It From The Notebook To The Page, I Do, And Then Comes This Very Strange Process Which Is Difficult To Describe In That I'll Write Until I Get Stuck Or I Can't Go Any Further Or I'm Boring Myself Or Whatever And Then I Might Go To Another Poem.

The Poetry That Sustains Me Is When I Feel That, For A Minute, The Clouds Have Parted And I've Seen Ecstasy Or Something