I hope my dreams will draw the reader into the particular mesh of thoughts and nexus of feelings, but I hope in the end to have spelled something out clearly. If the poem is swallowed whole it won't be digested. I want it to become part of the person, as I might recite a line from Dylan Thomas without understanding but for the music. A rose dissected loses its perfume but is still a miracle of creation or a work of art whatever its biology. I don't mind if part of the poem remains elusive, but most of it, with attention to the actual meaning, should yield a definite meaning. Too many poems are all meaning and no reserve. They are no more mysterious than a woman can help being to herself. Sometimes a specialized knowledge throws up a volcano of meaning, but aestheticians would say the question of meaning and who gives or takes it is a vexed one. Those whose main pleasure is from ignorance had better not be informed. I think my poems travel on a spectrum, and what would mean one thing to a child of ten would mean another to a farmer of forty or an academic of sixty. I think I want to surprise rather than boggle. Language has been devitalized by advertising and new poetry must almost dismantle the letters.

--Medbh McGuckian (In an interview with Kathleen McCracken).