Wisdom

Writers write more about their process than painters do, but their wisdom applies and I am grateful for it.

Resist any temptation to use the poem to make its readers like you, or admire you, or forgive you.
- Ellen Bryant Voigt

I believe that good poetry can be as ornate as a cathedral or as bare as a pottingshed, as long as it confronts the self with honesty and fullness. Nobody is born with the capacity to perform this act of confrontation, in poetry or anywhere else; one's writing career is simply a continuing effort to increase one's skill at it.
- Mona Van Duyn

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