Pretty much the day I stopped being laureate, the poems that had been few and far between came back to me, like birds in the evening nesting in a tree.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!
When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
I actually remember celebrating National Poetry Day at school; I remember having to write and read a load.
It is a tremendous honor to be named poet laureate, but one that I find humbling as well, because it's the kind of thing that makes me feel like - even as it's been bestowed upon me - I must continue to live up to what it means... Being the younger laureate in the age of social media is a new challenge.
The poetry of Walt Whitman. I can return again and again to these magnificent poems and still get pleasure from reading them.
Back then, I couldn't have left a poem a year and gone back to it.
There's one of my new poems actually - is a good example of where my poetry has ended up. My earlier river poetry was more like a cross between Shelley and Dylan Thomas.
I'd been writing poems for many years, but most of them I didn't like. Then, when I was 23, I wrote one I did like, sent it to 'The Paris Review' - the highest publication I could think of - and they accepted it. No other moment in my literary life has quite come close to that.
I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have.
No opposing quotes found.