Other Than Fiction And Poetry I Tend

Writing Is A Job, A Craft, And You Learn It By Trying To Write Every Day And By Facing The Page With Humility And Gall. And You Have To Love To Read Books, All Kinds Of Books, Good Books. You Are Not Looking For Anything In Particular; You Are Just Letting Stuff Seep In.

My Poems Always Begin With A Metaphor, But My Way Into The Metaphor May Be A Word, An Image, Even A Sound. And I Rarely Know The Nature Of The Metaphor When I Begin To Write, But There Is An Attentiveness That A Writer Develops, A Sudden Alertness That Is Much Like The Feel Of A Fish Brushing Against A Hook.

When A Philosopher, Scientist, Or Psychologist Discusses The Discrepancy Between The Actual And The Ideal, He Or She Attempts To Convince Us With The Tools Of Discursive Thought ... An Artist Does It Differently ... Their Primary Approach Is Different, Even Though Both Groups, If You Will, Are Investigating The Actual, The Ideal, And The Discrepancy In Between.

For The Past Thirty Years Or So, Much American Poetry Has Been Marked By An Earnestness That Rejects The Comic. This Has Nothing To Do With Seriousness. The Comic Can Be Very Serious. The Trouble With The Earnest Is That It Seeks To Be Commended. It Seeks To Be Praised For Its Intention More Than For What It Is Saying.

Adolescence Is A Dreadful Period. We Tend To Notice Those Youngsters Who Misbehave And Call Attention To Themselves, But There Are Others, Equally Miserable, Who Receive No Help Simply Because They Are Silent. (41)