I always wanted a child. Being a mother is the central thing in my life. Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.

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I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

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Every time a poet writes a poem it’s like it’s the first time. When you’ve finished a poem, you don’t know if you’ll ever write another one. Some poems arrive with a weight that’s more significant than other poems and you know it will take a lot of care to do it justice. Poetry, for so long now, has been the way I relate to everything. It’s like a companion. I can’t imagine ever being separated from it.

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You can teach form. You can teach students how to write a limerick and when those forms become recognisable to the students then they can start to imitate them. I always start with my favourite one: “There was a young man from Australia, who painted his arse like a dahlia, tuppence a smell, went down very well, but thruppence a lick was a failure.” That’s not even the rudest one I teach.

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Poetry is in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus .. or just what's in your heart

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