Tempest has forged her own voice, unlike anything else in the mainstream poetry world. The Independent

I believe that in all diverse forms of artistic expression across all countries, there are some sensitivities in common. Esther Phillips

The most remarkable phenomenon of the English poetic scene ... has been the advent, or perhaps I should say the irruption, of Gavin Ewart - Philip Larkin.

The simple lack / Of her is more to me / Than others' presence. Edward Thomas, 'The Unknown'

The eye, it cannot choose but see; / We cannot bid the ear be still; / Our bodies feel, where'er they be, / Against or with our will. Wordsworth, 'Expostulation and Reply'

An engraver in short, sharp slashes that go deep. Andrew Salkey

“The poet is a lifer. Anyone who gets into the game will soon start wishing that there was a version of it with lower stakes, but there isn't.”

My poems are the product of a relationship between a side of my mind which is conscious, alert, educated and manipulative, and a side which is as murky as a primaeval swamp. - Andrew Motion

We were testing the range of the human voice - 'The Shout', Simon Armitage

Young or old / What was I but the story told / By an unageing one? (Kathleen Raine, from 'Ah, many, many are the dead...')