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When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up. My mother was always telling him that he should write them down, but he would say, 'Well, they've all been done before. There are so many blooming books in the world - why should I write another one?'

Like so many aspiring writers who still have boxes of things they've written in their parents' houses, I filled notebooks with half-finished poems and stories and first paragraphs of novels that never got written.

Maybe it is something to do with age, but I have become fonder of poetry than of prose.

My mum always liked poetry, and she had pictures on the wall, so there was this visual stuff around.

I think of my peace paintings as one long poem, with each painting being a single stanza.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.

I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book.

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.