Bleak House is just the most astounding piece of work. There's huge visionary poetry in it.

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old inwardly its poetry is much deeper.

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can't do in prose.

There are so many things that poetry is about one of which is memory.

But for me being an editor I've been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

And there are a lot more people reading poetry but there are not so many people reading an individual poet.

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

The more poetry you have in the head the more poetry you will understand because you will be getting to the roots of what it is that makes people write poetry at all.

They need to learn poetry. They don't need to learn about poetry. They don't need to be told how to interpret poetry. They don't need to be told how to understand poetry. They need to learn it.

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry as such.