In January, he published a 173-page paperback collection of essays and poems, "Parting Shots From My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life".
A: There's one poem, Lady You Shot Me, that takes its title from Sam Cooke's last words.
On the way they exchanged fire with patriots at Lexington, an incident that is celebrated in Ralph Waldo Emerson's most famous poem as "the shot heard 'round the world".The patriots quickly realised that they had to be the first to get their version of events to Britain, where many were potentially sympathetic to their cause.
Her poetry gained an international platform in 1994, when Nelson Mandela read her poem "The Child Who Was Shot Dead by Soldiers in Nyanga" ("Die Kind") during his first address to the new South African Parliament.
His latest Selected Poems (Penguin) is his best shot yet at self-definition - a wonderfully varied, skilful and abundant book by a writer who is working at his formidable best.
A better question, perhaps, is one posed by John Halliday, the editor of the old-age-themed poetry anthology "Don't Bring Me No Rocking Chair" (the title is taken from a Maya Angelou poem): "Who is calling the shots when it comes to aging?" For Halliday, it is the power of poetry to offer us a "fresh language" of old age that is so important.
Slyly, the speaker avoids physical description of the girl, instead evoking her beauty by detailing the effect it has on the beholder; the whole poem is a kind of reaction shot.
Meanwhile, older brother Nichols himself tried his own forwards-backwards poem (keeping his hands out of shot this time).
Robert Pinsky, the former United States poet laureate, also deserves a shot at the title with his poem "Tennis".
His great poem for Muhammad al-Durrah, the Palestinian boy shot by the Israeli army as he sheltered behind his father, struck a chord across the world.
