Burn Ovid with the rest. Lovers will find/ A hedge-school for themselves and learn by heart/ All that the clergy banish from the mind,/ When hands are joined and head bows in the dark. - 'Penal Law' by Austin Clarke

Compose aloud; poetry is sound. - Advice to young poets, Basil Bunting

A poem is a little moment of belief. - Jackie Kay

wen yuh see she walk//holdin freedom water//balance pon she head - 'caribbean woman', Jean 'Binta' Breeze

If I didn't write poetry I think I'd explode. - Charles Causley

In his range, prodigious northern myth-making, indefatigable good humour, and real status as a community poet, he is unique. - Peter Forbes

A voice as welcome as Lear's fool... Humour that can stick deep and stay funny. - Ted Hughes

Who anyone is or I am is nothing to the work. (Denise Riley, from 'Dark Looks')