This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean the clues were in the poems but they didn't read them very carefully and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living.

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life.

All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children things that touch your soul.

People who read poetry for example like the feel the heft and the smell of a book.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

When you're looking that far out you're giving people their place in the universe it touches people. Science is often visual so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry it touches you.

Because people are very interested in my poetry in what I say.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

The other side of it is that despite all that people reach out to poetry at the key moments in their lives.

For whatever reason people including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading do not read poetry.

My art and poetry is very political now. Because you've got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there I know there will be people who will listen.

Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.

So now I have a collection of poetry by Aaron Neville and I give it to people I want to share it with. I'd like to publish it someday.

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write but it's not.

Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction but often it's really just about the money the perceived prestige.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry but obviously like everybody I have a set of criteria for reading poems and I'm not shy about presenting them so if people ask for my critical response to a poem I tell them what works and why and what doesn't work and why.