Essay Database

Insomnia The moon in the bureau mirror looks out a million miles (and perhaps with pride, at herself, but she never, never smiles) far and away beyond sleep, or perhaps she's a daytime sleeper. By the universe deserted, she'd tell it to go to hell, and she'd finda body of water, or a mirror, on which to dwell. So wrap up care in a cobweb and drop it down the well into that world inverted …

…poems each, in anthologies--read ALL of somebody. Then read his or her life, and letters, and so on. (And by all means read Keats's Letters.) Then see what happens. That's really all I can say. It can't be done, apparently, by willpower and study alone--or by being "with it"--but I really don't know how poetry gets to be written. There is a mystery & a surprise, and after that a great deal of hard work...