Roger McGough
Whereas with poetry no one has to show anybody really, and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it.Collection: Poetry
If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul.Collection: Poetry
If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision.
I wish the word whimsical wasn't used now.
You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals.
I was put off by people at school - my cabbage wasn't as good as other people's, you know, so that put me off.
I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poems.
People can put their best poems straight onto the web.
We shouldn't have got married, really. Shouldn't have got married. Too young. Not ready for it.
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together.
Everyday I think about dying About disease, starvation, violence, terrorism, war, the end of the world. It helps keep my mind off things.Collection: War
There's the moon trying to look romanticMoon's too old that's her troubleAren't we all?Collection: Moon
If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soulCollection: Children
Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and in-between- the-sheets, holy-water death.Collection: Water
I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poemsCollection: Computer
by thus keeping one pace ahead of myself I need never catch up with the truth.Collection: Needs
I could never begin a poem: 'When I am dead' In case it tempted Fate, and Fate gave way.Collection: Fate
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were togetherCollection: Thinking
Do people who wave at trains Wave at the driver, or at the train itself? Or, do people who wave at trains Wave at the passengers? Those hurtling strangers, The unidentifiable flying faces?Collection: People
The general at the radar screenRubbed his hands with glee,And grinning pressed the buttonAnd started world war three.Collection: War