As Was The Custom In

Nine-tenths Of English Poetic Literature Is The Result Either Of Vulgar Careerism Or Of A Poet Trying To Keep His Hand In. Most Poets Are Dead By Their Late Twenties.

New Beginnings And New Shoots Spring Again From Hidden Roots Pull Or Stab Or Cut Or Burn, Love Must Ever Yet Return.

Abstract Reason, Formerly The Servant Of Practical Human Reasons, Has Everywhere Become Its Master, And Denies Poetry Any Excuse For Existence. Though Philosophers Like To Define Poetry As Irrational Fancy, For Us It Is Practical, Humorous, Reasonable Way Of Being Ourselves. Of Never Acquiescing In A Fraud; Of Never Accepting The Secondary-rate In Poetry, Painting, Music, Love, Friends. Of Safeguarding Our Poetic Institutions Against The Encroachments Of Mechanized, Insensate, Inhumane, Abstract Rationality.

Entrance And Exit Wounds Are Silvered Clean, The Track Aches Only When The Rain Reminds. The One-legged Man Forgets His Leg Of Wood, The One-armed Man His Jointed Wooden Arm. The Blinded Man Sees With His Ears And Hands As Much Or More Than Once With Both His Eyes.

Poet, Never Chase The Dream. Laugh Yourself And Turn Away. Mask Your Hunger, Let It Seem Small Matter If He Come Or Stay; But When He Nestles In Your Hand At Last, Close Up Your Fingers Tight And Hold Him Fast.