"I can't say that I have one favourite poet. In my experience, different books require different muses. For my first book of poetry, a collection of ghazals, I leaned heavily on John Thompson, Phyllis Webb and Hafiz. It's as if the form itself — whatever form I'm working with — draws certain poets to me at the time. Quarrels could not have been written without the help of the early French poets and surrealists: Baudelaire, Jacob, Ponge and, especially, Jean Follain. I was powerfully drawn to the surreal worlds they offered and to the freedom I felt as a writer to explore the boundaries between the literal and the metaphorical in my own life.

"I keep certain books close to me when I work on a manuscript. As I found my way into prose poetry, contemporary poets such as Charles Simic, David Keplinger and Carsten René Nielsen were never far from me. If, however, I had to choose only one poet, somebody who embodies the essence of poetry, who is there in the blood and the breath and in all that can't be articulated, I would have to choose Federico García Lorca. In my mind, I can't separate the poet from his poems, the singer from the song. The duende, he writes, is not a question of ability, it is related to that mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains. For me, there is no greater definition of poetry."