I think poetry has lost an awful lot of its muscle because nobody knows any. Nobody has to memorize poetry.

My friends never talk to me about my poetry because they're embarrassed that I write it or they're embarrassed by what I write about which are not such extraordinarily terrifying things but they are the state of human existence.

It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated unlike poetry which is more equal.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

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.

Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.