In my poetry I give primacy to the breath. For me it is the way the poem breathes that gives it form. - Penelope Shuttle

Every writer nearly always has a lost woman. - Patricia Beer

A writer is not interested in explaining reality; he's interested in capturing it. - Brendan Kennelly

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

A true poem is dreamed and danced as well as thought. - Les Murray

With a lyric poem, you look, and meditate, and put the rock back. With fiction you poke things with a stick to see what will happen. - Margaret Atwood

Beyond decoration, humble, in plain rhyme, / As clear as I could, and as truthful - 'Beyond Decoration', P J Kavanagh