Quotes from Michael Longley

I was the first Arts Council official in the archipelago to do something for what you might call indigenous music.

I would insist that poetry is a normal human activity and its proper concern all the things that happen to people.

The gap between verse and poetry is enormous. Between good poetry and good prose the gap is much narrower

I'm not against ambition and reach, but if you can say it in four lines, why waste your time saying it in more? Challenge the world by all means, but it's bad for your poetry to take steroids.

I work hard to make the poems as good as they can be, and if they're not good enough I scrap them. I find it difficult after a gap of a few years to tinker - I'm more likely to destroy.

I think a philistine environment should be bracing for young artists. You have to make your own enjoyment, you've got to make your own art.

I would insist that poetry is a normal human activity and its proper concern all the things that happen to people.