The POETS have been mysteriously SILENT on the SUBJECT of CHEESE.

There is no DOUBT that Michael Symmons Roberts is a very good POET - you don't win a Whitbread award and GET shortlisted for a TS Eliot prize for nothing. Few POETS, though, have ever been good novelists, and vice-versa.

I ALSO want to sing the LYRICS penned by poets LIKE Srijato.

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found AMONG POETS, for ALMOST every one of them thinks himself the GREATEST in the world.

I would go to an AUNT's house, and she would let me play music, and she had 'The Last Poets' album. At that time, ALBUMS didn't have explicit stickers on them, so some of the songs had profanity on them, and I was moved by that. I would listen to those songs, to the FLOW, and I'd balance it back and forth with the NURSERY STUFF I had.

I've had trouble with criticism, I GUESS. It's HARD to know what ROLE criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other PEOPLE to read them.

Poets OFTEN are dealing with HISTORY and are thinking about the way history MOVES ACROSS US, and we move in it.

I GREW up LISTENING to the 60's and 70's... STORYTELLERS and POETS.

There are so many NEW young poets, novelists, and playwrights who are much LESS politically committed than the former GENERATIONS. The trend is to be totally concentrated on the literary AESTHETIC and to consider politics to be something dirty that shouldn't be mixed with an artistic or a literary VOCATION.

I'm a TEACHER, so much of what I'm doing remains in the abstract. But I also support a lot of educational INITIATIVES that support KIDS to really get out there and work hard in their communities. But I also think that we NEED poets in our COUNTRY to inspire.