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I find a lot of poetry very disappointing, but I do have poets that I go back to. One book of poetry that I'd like to mention is 'The Exchange' by Sophie Cabot Black. Her poems are difficult without being too difficult.

My poems tend to be more celebratory and lyrical, and the novels so far pretty dark. Poetry doesn't seem to me to be an appropriate tool for exploring that.

I think of poets as outlaw visionaries in a way.

I've always been a fan of poetry. I grew up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Beat poets. I really followed that stuff for a while. I just love the way people threw words around like they were painting.

I think the first little jolt I got was reading Gerard Manley Hopkins - I liked other poems... but Hopkins was kind of electric for me - he changed the rules with speech, and the whole intensity of the language was there and so on.

I've always had an affinity for writers who have a poetry background, so I always liked Tennessee Williams.

My favorite poem ever was 'Annabel Lee' by Edgar Allan Poe.

I read a lot of nineteenth-century French poetry. And Irish poetry from the ninth century on.

I've always loved the poetry in 'Pale Fire.' I think it's wonderful.

I've been influenced by poets as diverse as Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.