I want to improve my poetry. I need to improve my poetry. It's not something I expect anyone to understand, but I need it. I need it more than money, more than love, more than health, more than happiness.
My hope is that if I read people who already do it well, I might absorb some sense of how they did it and then maybe do it myself. I'll start with Dickenson, then Thomas, who I've been reading today, and then maybe Bukowski.
Bukowski is my father's age. He writes a great deal about writing. Writing about writing or talking about writing, even a hint of it, is something I never discussed with my father. I tried to, several times I tried to, but it frightened me. Letting him know--letting anyone know what was inside me never seemed like the proper thing to do. I'm not entirely sure it is now.
Nobody pays for poetry. Nobody cares about poetry unless it's part of a song, a song that makes them think of their own lives. This is for me. This is for finding a way to express what I need to express without prose or exposition. I want to paint with words and make each stroke tell a story.
My poetry is pretty awful—but I’m not done yet. Not yet. This is for me. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it.
