Poetry is the voice of spirit and imagination and all that is potential, as well as of the healing benevolence that used to be the privilege of the gods. - Ted Hughes

Come close the flower says and we come close, / close enough to lift, cup and smell the rose - 'Come Close', Mimi Khalvati

A keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders - Seamus Heaney

And here is love / like a tinsmith's scoop / sunk past its gleam / in the meal-bin - 'Mossbawn Sunlight', Seamus Heaney

I do mock literature and take it seriously at the same time, but anyone who is passionately attached to a football team will have similar mixed feelings - Ian Duhig

What happens with me is quite often I start with a memory, mix it with observations of people I know and then mix in a bit of 'What if...?' - Michael Rosen

All poems are rash acts. - Allen Curnow