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We learned in the university to consider Wordsworth and Keats as Romantics. They were only a generation apart, but Wordsworth didn't even read Keats's book when he gave him a copy.

But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.

Poets are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one.

I love romantic poetry.

I'm an amalgam of the 19th-century romantics and the beat poets.

Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.

I feel very connected to poets across the country.

I've been trekking the hills and lanes of the British countryside for nearly four decades now and I've come to associate my passion with overexcited poets rather than pampered painters.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and, yes, read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down, but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.