My Heart Has Become As Hard As

The Truth--a Hideous Spectacle!

It Is Precisely The Sort Of Thing I Am Always Trying To Do In My Writing -- To Present My Unhappy Reader With A Wide-ranged Chaos -- Of Actions And Reactions, Thoughts, Memories And Feelings -- In The Vain Hope That At The End He Will See That The Whole Thing Represents Only One Moment, One Feeling, One Person. A Raging, Trumpeting Jungle Of Associations, And Then I Announce At The End Of It, With A Gesture Of Despair, "this Is I!

Oh, I've Discarded A Great Many [poems]. And Occasionally I've Discarded And Then Resurrected. I Would Find A Crumpled Yellow Ball Of Paper In The Wastebasket, In The Morning, And Open It To See What The Hell I'd Been Up To; And Occasionally It Was Something That Needed Only A Very Slight Change To Be Brought Off, Which I'd Missed The Day Before.

Schoolchildren All Over America Are Told To Write To Authors-often To Authors Whom They Have Never Before Heard Of, Whose Work They Are To Young To Understand In The Least, And Often In Letters Which Are Almost Illiterate. If Children Are To Be Taught To Respect The Work Of American Poets I Think Some Better Way Might Be Found To Do So- Some Way Which Would Not Make Such An Inconsiderate Demand On The Author's Time.

Death Is One Dream Out Of Another Flowing.