I used to think all poets were Byronic.

I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.

I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.

There is some humour in 'Family Values.' I don't want everyone to think it's not going to make them laugh. But there are quite a lot of poems there that aren't funny at all.

I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?'

I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.