I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.

Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.

I wanted to reimagine the role in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents events preoccupations and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Traditional matter must be glorified since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners we must remember needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.

When I was in college I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.

Since there will be no one left to talk peace after the next war it makes good sense to break with tradition and hold the peace conference first.

The higher American patriotism on the other hand combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.

I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school which is traditionally outside-in and the more American way of working from the inside out.

In these confused times the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.