[Sybarite]

I've been reading increasing amounts of poetry over the last few years – like Mirabell, I came late to it, though. In my case, I was primarily put off by school. It was the one part of the English literature curriculum that I never enjoyed – not least Keats, whom I ended up having to study for around four years.

In the late 1980s, I read a bit of the Mersey beat poets (Henri, Patten and McGough), but it's only in the last couple of years that I've started reading a little more.

One of my favourite individual poems is Brecht's Ballade von den Seeräubern (Ballad of the Pirates), which sent shivers down my spine when I read it first and really helped me to comprehend the idea of 19th century romanticism, as opposed to some soppy, sentimental idealisation of romantic love.

I've read quite a bit of John Betjeman – technically very, very good, but I find the subject matter tedious, in that it's a chocolate box England that never existed for the overwhelming majority of English people, but yet retains a powerful almost mythological sway over many people. Like Tolkien and others, Betjeman was deeply anti-working class and industry.

One of my favourite poets in recent years has become Thom Gunn, after I read The Man With Night Sweats in a sitting and found it a very moving experience.

The Collected Philip Larkin is currently sitting by the bed – misanthropic, but intriguing.