“There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.”
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Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
Music is my thing. It's my thing it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me it's Christmas to me religion to me poetry to me.
Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.