The Ring of Words

"Yes, it’s one of mine. It’s an anthology of poetry for children. I’ve always been quite unsure about this gap, the line between what is a children’s poem and what is an adults’ poem because, as a writer for both, when I write a poem I just write the poem, and later on you have to make these sorts of decisions. No, not usually. Not generally, except perhaps when I am in the middle of a book, doing an Imaginary Menagerie , which is the next book of animal poems. You start doing that and you realise, this is a children’s book. You set out and it’s an animal book for children. But generally no. I write the poem and then I don’t know where it’s going to be. But this book is illustrated, which makes it into a children’s book , doesn’t it? There are wonderful illustrations by Satashi Kitamura. But illustrations apart, the poems in it are really adult poems as much as anything: about yearnings, about love, about the future. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Less so now. Only because it’s so time-consuming. I pick and choose a bit. I’m not the great warrior that I was in my youth. Yes, very much so. I think that all children are poets. The way they link up objects that can’t be linked up. The disparate things, the random. And then we teach them, we correct them. It’s all information once you go to school. Imagination becomes less important. There isn’t time to gaze out of the window daydreaming. Daydreaming is central to what I do and what children can do."