I'm Quite Good At Not Writing.

When We Go On About The Big Things, The Political Situation, Global Warming, World Poverty, It All Looks Really Terrible, With Nothing Getting Better, Nothing To Look Forward To. But When I Think Small, Closer In - You Know, A Girl I've Just Met, Or This Song We're Going To Do With Chas, Or Snowboarding Next Month, Then It Looks Great. So This Is Going To Be My Motto - Think Small.

London In The '70s Was A Pretty Catastrophic Dump, I Can Tell You. We Had Every Kind Of Industrial Trouble; We Had Severe Energy Problems; We Were Under Constant Terrorist Attack From Irish Terrorist Groups Who Had Started A Bombing Campaign In English Cities; Politics Were Fantastically Polarized Between Left And Right.

But To Do Its Noticing And Judging, Poetry Balances Itself On The Pinprick Of The Moment. Slowing Down, Stopping Yourself Completely, To Read And Understand A Poem Is Like Trying To Acquire An Old-fashioned Skill.

I Was The Basest Of Readers. All I Wanted Was My Own World, And Myself In It, Given Back To Me In Artful Shapes And Accessible Form.

I'm Holding Back, Delaying The Information. I'm Lingering In The Prior Moment Because It Was A Time When Other Outcomes Were Still Possible.