'Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the self-help sections of bookshops, expecting to find the secret to long life and enduring happiness written down somewhere. As a poet, I am preternaturally worried about poetry running out on me: the inspiration drying up, the fun of it going out for a pack of cigarettes one day and never coming back, leaving me with nothing but a sink full of dishes and a manuscript full of melancholy poems about birds.' (Introduction)