Poetry Today Is Easier To Write But

Not That You Need To Be A Saint To Have Visions Worth Talking About. The Most Effective Prescription, I Suspect, Is To Be A Disciplined Sinner. Perfection, As Valery Noted, Is Work.

End With An Image And Don't Explain.

Poetry Today Is Easier To Write But Harder To Remember.

Some Poems Present Themselves As Cliffs That Need To Be Climbed. Others Are So Defensive That When You Approach Their Enclosure You Half Expect To Be Met By A Snarling Dog At The Gate. Still Others Want To Smother You With Their Sticky Charms.

When You Look Back On A Lifetime And Think Of What Has Been Given To The World By Your Presence, Your Fugitive Presence, Inevitably You Think Of Your Art, Whatever It May Be, As The Gift You Have Made To The World In Acknowledgment Of The Gift You Have Been Given, Which Is The Life Itself... That Work Is Not An Expression Of The Desire For Praise Or Recognition, Or Prizes, But The Deepest Manifestation Of Your Gratitiude For The Gift Of Life.