'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight' Christopher Marlowe, 'Hero and Leander'

Air falls under the heavy yoke of bells - 'Sunday Morning', Denis Glover

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.

I don't want to be one of those ivory tower writers; I want to affect people's lives.

She is all States, and all princes I, / Nothing else is. John Donne

Her scary, unsettling voice seems unexpected in poetry. It cuts her free of the crowd - The Times

This is work you can't ignore - raw, reckless and more bloody-minded than an older, so-called wiser poet would dare to be - Selima Hill

Good writing gives energy, whatever it is about. But the fact that writers are dealing with essential issues...I think that's a necessary integration of literary writing with what's actually going on in our world. - Marilyn Hacker

...the communication of the dead/is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. - from Part 1 of 'Little Gidding', T. S. Eliot

What troubles me is a sense that so many things lovely and precious in our world seem to be dying out. Perhaps poetry will be the canary in the mine-shaft warning us of what's to come. - Galway Kinnell

Keep it simple and make it visual seems to be the best idea. - Hugo Williams