At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day the world had changed. It needed a different language.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Since I was 14, I wanted to make music, but I think I would also have made a good policeman. When I was eight, I wanted to be one so I could tell people off.
At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer.
When I was nine, the teacher asked us to write a piece about our village fete. He read mine in class. I was encouraged and continued. I even wanted to write my memoirs at the age of ten. At twelve I wrote poetry, mostly about friendship - 'Ode to Friendship.' Then my class wanted to make a film, and one little boy suggested that I write the script.
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet.
I was one of those dark, quiet kids that wrote poetry.
I was a 16-year-old girl at one point, so of course I wrote poetry.
I just discovered when I was, oh, 12 or 13, that I was very interested in language - and this showed itself as poetry. There was no looking back.
It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.
I was completely devoted to reading and books from the age of seven. It took until I was 18 to have the confidence to write poetry.