Something Needn't Be Large To Be Good.

I Caught A Tremendous Fish And Held Him Beside The Boat Half Out Of Water, With My Hook Fast In A Corner Of His Mouth. He Didn't Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Stared And Stared And Victory Filled Up The Little Rented Boat From The Pool Of Bilge Where Oil Had Spread A Rainbow Around The Rusted Engine To The Bailer Rusted Orange, The Sun-cracked Thwarts The Oarlocks On Their Strings, The Gunnels-until Everything Was Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow! And I Let The Fish Go.

It Is What We Imagine Knowledge To Be: Dark, Salt, Clear, Moving, Utterly Free, Drawn From The Cold Hard Mouth Of The World, Derived From The Rocky Breasts Forever, Flowing And Drawn, And Since Our Knowledge Is Historical, Flowing, And Flown.

And As To Experience-well, Think How Little Some Good Poets Have Had, Or How Much Some Bad Ones Have.

Being A Poet Is One Of The Unhealthier Jobs--no Regular Hours, So Many Temptations!

If After I Read A Poem The World Looks Like That Poem For 24 Hours Or So I'm Sure It's A Good One—and The Same Goes For Paintings.