Great is the hand that holds dominion over/Man by a scribbled name.

I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they’ve ever questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn’t know, because I won’t ever dare ask that question.

In my craft or sullen artExercised in the still nightWhen only the moon ragesAnd the lovers lie abedWith all their griefs in their arms,I labour by singing lightNot for ambition or breadOr the strut and...

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

…Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea.

Swansea is a town where art is alive. If it became a cultural centre or a resort where art was fashionable and where it was always being discussed but never being created, it would be...

Poetry is not the most important thing in life… I’d much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.

It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.

[I’m]a freak user of words, not a poet.

Man be my metaphor’,

Some people react physically to the magic of poetry, to the moments, that is, of authentic revelation, of the communication, the sharing, at its highest level…A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world...

I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies. They are better company and their feelings towards you are always genuine.

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

I sang in my chains like the sea

Though lovers be lost love shall not.

The only sea I saw Was the seesaw sea With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.

And death shall have no dominion.Under the windings of the seaThey lying long shall not die windily;Twisting on racks when sinews give way,Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;Faith in their hands shall...

Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.She did not hear him, but stood over his bed and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow.Hold my hand, he said, and then: why are your putting the sheet...

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like, who drinks as much as you do.

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and confusions, are written for the love of man and in Praise of God, and I’d be a damn fool if they weren’t.

And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.

And I roseIn rainy autumnAnd walked abroad in a shower of all my days…

I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads...

On No Work of WordsOn no work of words now for three lean months in the bloodyBelly of the rich year and the big purse of my bodyI bitterly take to task my poverty and...

Come on up, boys-I’m dead.

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps...