I don't always believe it, and I think some of the people who set out in Empson's footsteps wandered into unhelpful places.

But sometimes I believe it. Writing the introduction to my next book, I found the courage to remark that the modern poets who appear alongside the book's real topic, Middle English poetry, appear 'because I like them'.

I doubt that will endear me to the field, but one of the pleasures of living hand-to-mouth on fixed-term jobs is not having to care about that.