I've been singing for six years. I've been in and out of the studios with top producers but it wasn't something I was ready to express to the public or to the press. I wasn't ready to come out. I wanted to perfect my voice and be 100 percent positive that I could come out right.

A year or so ago I went through all the people in my life and asked myself: does this person inspire me genuinely love me and support me unconditionally? I wanted nothing but positive influences in my life.

I wanted the feel in these books to be like an epic fantasy with kings queens dukes and court politics but of course like what I was explaining before about making the science make sense you have to make the politics make sense too.

I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine you know just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!

What drew me to politics in the first place was the fact that I wanted to have a place to take a stand and use my voice to express what I believed in. But I've no longer got any political aspirations. I feel that as a politician fifty per cent of people would hate you before you even left the house.

My father had wanted to name me for Dylan Thomas. He had seen him speak on one of those drunken poetry tours he did.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate or just never come back I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much and so I just went.

I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.

But I am not political in the current events sense and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

So I really began as a failed poet - although when I first wanted to be a writer I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

I wanted to reimagine the role in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents events preoccupations and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.

What I wanted to do in rock 'n roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it.

I wanted to connect all people who are thinking about peace on Earth.

When we were at peace Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now there's a war so Democrats want to raise taxes. When there was a surplus Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now that there is a mild recession Democrats want to raise taxes.

The hippies wanted peace and love. We wanted Ferraris blondes and switchblades.

I had daydreams and fantasies when I was growing up. I always wanted to live in a log cabin at the foot of a mountain. I would ride my horse to town and pick up provisions. Then return to the cabin with a big open fire a record player and peace.

How can you consider flower power outdated? The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That's all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?

No I've never wanted kids. But I do read about parenting a lot.

People have always wanted to be recognized and that's human nature. But people used to want to be recognized for their accomplishments and now they simply want to be visible.

My first two records are so simply constructed. The reason isn't because I wanted to make simple music. It's because I don't really have the chops.

Also because people like to multitask in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise but leave your brain free to do something else.