The Initial Mystery That Attends

Song, Like A Wing, Tears Through My Breast, My Side, And Madness Chooses Out My Voice Again, Again.

Up From The Bronze, I Saw Water Without A Flaw Rush To Its Rest In Air Reach To Its Rest, And Fall.

It Is Not Possible, For A Poet, Writing In Any Language, To Protect Himself From The Tragic Elements In Human Life.... [ellipsis In Source] Illness, Old Age, And Death--subjects As Ancient As Humanity--these Are The Subjects That The Poet Must Speak Of Very Nearly From The First Moment That He Begins To Speak.

But Childhood Prolonged, Cannot Remain A Fairyland. It Becomes A Hell.

But It's Silly To Suggest The Writing Of Poetry Is Something Ethereal, A Sort Of Soul-crashing, Devastating Emotional Experience That Wrings You. I Have No Fancy Ideas About Poetry. ... It Doesn't Come To You On The Wings Of A Dove. It's Something You Have To Work Hard At.