Poets Go Through A Very Tough Apprenticeship

If The Garden Of Eden Really Exists It Does So Moment By Moment, Fragmented And Tough, Cropping Up Like A Fan Of Buddleia High Up In The Gutter Of A Deserted Warehouse, Or In A Heap Of Frozen Cabbages Becoming Luminous In The Reflected Light Of Roadside Snow.

Writing Poetry Makes You Intensely Conscious Of How Words Sound, Both Aloud And Inside The Head Of The Reader. You Learn The Weight Of Words And How They Sound To The Ear.

Reread, Rewrite, Reread, Rewrite. If It Still Doesn’t Work, Throw It Away.

A Novel, In The End, Is A Container, A Shape Which You Are Trying To Pour Your Story Into.

I Concentrate On The Lives Of Individuals Whom The Reader Comes To Know And Feel With Intimately.