BENGALURU: Your favourite love poem:
A collection titled Elegies by Douglas Dunn.
A poem / poet you keep going back to:
Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes because he knew instinctively the despotic nature of all evil.
The first poem you remember reading:
Apart from the usual Romantics taught at school, the Modern Poetry Series published by Penguin, Seamus Heaney’s first book Death of a Naturalist and Ted Hughes’ first book The Hawk In the Rain.
Written word or slam? Or songs?
The written word — more time to ponder over.
Epics or anthologies? Or any other genre?
Individual collections by poets. Anthologies usually reflect the taste of the editor, which may not always match mine.
Poetry vs prose:
Poetry for long journeys, prose for one-day picnics.
Inspiration and influences:
I’m not sure ‘influence’ is the right word, but I’ve admired the work of Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Thom Gunn, Norman MacCaig, Antonin Bartusek and Paul Celan, among others. Early reading included the work of the so-called ‘confessional’ school — Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton. In recent years, I’ve liked the work of Simon Armitage.