All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

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• Norman MacCaig:

  All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the

• Norman MacCaig:

  And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

• Norman MacCaig:

  And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - somet

• Norman MacCaig:

  And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

• Norman MacCaig:

  And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of

• Norman MacCaig:

  And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

• Norman MacCaig:

  Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

• Norman MacCaig:

  But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better th

• Norman MacCaig:

  But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particula

• Norman MacCaig:

  However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or