I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.
Many varieties of sonnet, of course, have been written over the ages.
My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.
Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.
I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.
There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.