When poet and author Paul Groves was growing up in a tiny Monmouthshire hamlet, he really didn't have a clue what he wanted to do with his life.

His father and brother were both policemen - a career option which did not fill him with much joy. His sister worked as a nurse.

It was this path he started to follow when he left school but he soon veered off that track and his life took various twists and turns including teacher training college and training for the ministry.

He ended up teaching for many years but his first love would have to be words - either in the form of poetry or prose.

Paul was brought up at The Narth.

"It was wonderful in those days,"

he remembers.

"There was no crime, no pub. We were all the same class and I don't think anyone was divorced. It was quite cut off - there was no bus service - but I had an idyllic childhood there.

"We didn't have the distractions that children nowadays have. In a sense it was more a 19th century existence - we didn't have electricity until 1958."

In Paul's new book, country Boy, he tells the story of his early life, his days at Monmouth School, and the various twists and turns of his career path up until 1972 when he meets Irish poet Seamus Heaney who "looked at my poetry and was quite taken with it".

"I wrote my first poem when I was 16. I was fond of chess as well and they are very similar things.

They are both about problem solving. With poetry it's using the best words in the best order which is a great challenge. Anyone can do it. It is free to do and you can do it at anytime, anywhere. We have a rich language which is a precious gift. It is sad that people's vocabulary is much simpler now than it used to be. That's thanks to dumbing down, I think," he says.

Since he started down the poetry road his work has won numerous prizes including the Orbis International Prize, the Charterhouse Award, the Bournemouth Festival Award and the Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition.

Paul finally spent most of his working life in the world of teaching and for many years he has worked as a lecturer in creative writing.

So, how does he go about writing?

"Well, you've got to have no distractions. The human brain isn't like that. I go wherever there is no distraction. I need peace and quiet so I can gather my thoughts.

"I don't compose straight on to the computer. I like to feel my hand going over the page as I am writing. It is great to lose yourself and think about the way human beings react to things and try to make some sense of the world.

"I write about anything and everything. My third book, Eros and Thanatos was themed. It was about love and death.

Half of it was about sex and the other was about death."

"I like to use a fair bit of rhyme in my poetry and I do use a rhyming dictionary. A lot of people, including some of my students, are cagey about poetry because of what they are told about it. They think it is old fashioned but they haven't read anything modern."

He said it was important to introduce youngsters to poetry by using more modern work.

"It's got to mean something to them. Humour is one way of getting kids into poetry."

And who are Paul's favourite poets?

"I have favourite poems rather than favourite poets," he says.

"But there are some good poets in Wales at the moment. Ruth Bidgood is one. She is 85 now and is a major poet. She is extremely self-effacing and is a very spiritual woman. Then there is Hilary Llewellyn-Williams who is from Pontypool, or Sheenagh Pugh or Catherine Fisher or Paul Henry, of Newport."

Paul's book Country Boy is published by Starborn Books.

Price £7.50.

2:51pm Friday 4th January 2008

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