I Don't Like Quintessential Certitude.

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.

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

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.

Stupidity Always Accompanies Evil. Or Evil, Stupidity.

... How Much Of Our Inner Substance Is It Good For Us To Give To Public Griefs? The Whole Modern Tendency To Agonize Over The Suffering Of The Entire Globe Is Surely Something New.