“Lovers lie around in itBroken glass is found in itGrassI like that stuff.”

And the BMA sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.

Poetry is an extra hand. It can caress or tickle. It can clench and fight.

The man who believes in giraffes would swallow anything.

I want to speak, to sing to total strangers. It’s my way of talking to the world.

I don’t like writing essays or theory.

There have always been poets who performed.

Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

I use the language I use to my friends. They wouldn’t believe me if I used some high-flown literary language. I want them to believe me.

I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock’n roll.

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

Stadium rock and commercial rock are the opposite of what poetry needs. An audience of around 200 is ideal for poetry.

I would have walked on the waterBut I wasn’t fully insured.

And the BMA sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.

You take the human being and you twist it all about So scrub my skin with women Chain my tongue with whisky Stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music.

I was run over by the truth one day.Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way.

I kind of do the drawing with the painting in mind, but it’s very hard to guess at a size or a color and all the colors around it and what it will really look like.

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.

I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it’s more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.

You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you.

Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature through the window or door-frame of a palace.

Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Until we do something about wild dogs, kangaroos competing for pasture, your fortunes in life aren’t gonna turn around.