Chapter 1: Some Essentials of Poetry—in no Particular Order

Many people decide—usually in the first two years of high school—that they are going to be poets. A small portion of them go on to write some poetry. Most of those never go on to write anything that is of any interest outside of a small circle of friends. These people dream of being poets in about the same way that I dreamed of being a pitcher for the New York Yankees: concentrating on the being, not the doing. Frankly, I’m not nearly as interested in people who want to be poets as I am in people who want to write poetry.