But I can’t and don’t ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don’t make enough money.

I deeply adored my mum. She was an extraordinary person, even for the prejudice I’m likely to have. She was beautiful, amusing, a tremendous elaborator of things into comic proportions and extravagant in her imagination.

While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of ‘difficult’ poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there’s room for ‘difficult’ poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won’t be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice.

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn’t betray things that are true to me as a poet.

I don’t want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people’s feelings a lot of the time.

I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in – towards a more mainland-European model – is one I would feel sympathetic about.

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it’s no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

I’m ensuring my place in heaven.

Each sudden gust of light explains itselfas flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear (Leaving Belfast)