Is it all down to my father's habit
of smoking Sweet Afton cigarettes
and my reading and re-reading
Burns' lovely couplet on the packet:
"Flow gently sweet Afton among thy green braes,
flow gently I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."

Or the fact that my mother was Sylvia Plath?


Gerry Murphy's most recent publications are End of Part One: New & Selected Poems (Dedalus, 2006) and My Flirtation With International Socialism (Dedalus, 2010).