Walt had a marvelous intuition. And because he understood people very well, liked them and had great respect for people, there was nothing cynical about Walt.

For about ten years now, the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power.

But the Western countries that link their partnership with the poorest countries with respect for democracy also have to consider that they have obligations towards these countries.

Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.