Sitting around an old table/they drew lines across the map/dividing the place/I would call my country. Choman Hardi 'Lausanne, 1923'

...and the poem will not care that some walk past/afraid of the words we try out on our tongues/ hoping this finally is the language of God, /that he might hear it and respond. Kei Miller, from 'Speaking in Tongues'.

His poems are made from his life with his life; his poems are earned. He dares to be simple. And he is surely among the finest young poets alive. - The American Poetry Review

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')