The Next Move Is Always

The Bogholes Might Be Atlantic Seepage. The Wet Centre Is Bottomless.

I Always Believed That Whatever Had To Be Written Would Somehow Get Itself Written.

The External Reality And Inner Dynamic Of Happenings In Northern Ireland Between 1968 And 1974 Were Symptomatic Of Change, Violent Change Admittedly, But Change Nevertheless, And For The Minority Living There, Change Had Been Long Overdue.

But Even So, None Of The News Of These World-spasms Entered Me As Terror.

I Have Always Thought Of Poems As Stepping Stones In One's Own Sense Of Oneself. Every Now And Again, You Write A Poem That Gives You Self-respect And Steadies Your Going A Little Bit Farther Out In The Stream. At The Same Time, You Have To Conjure The Next Stepping Stone Because The Stream, We Hope, Keeps Flowing.