Peter Davison

It is a way we reassess our past. We can do that in poetry in ways we can’t do in prose.

And there are a lot more people reading poetry, but there are not so many people reading an individual poet.

The more poetry you have in the head, the more poetry you will understand because you will be getting to the roots of what it is that makes people write poetry at all.

But poetry is my life. Poetry is what matters to me.

But for me, being an editor I’ve been an editor of all kinds of books being an editor of poetry has been the way in which I could give a crucial part of my time to what I love most.

There are so many things that poetry is about, one of which is memory.

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers.

Poetry is composing for the breath.

Poetry should be able to reach everybody, and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding.

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such.