Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Yes, very much so. When I first started writing, I wanted to write poetry that startled people out emotional torpor, what I thought was the result of the best writing to come out of the Beat Generation. My writing wasn’t any good by any measure, mainly because I understood a desire to shock as giving me license to write about whatever so long as the writing was in a shrill tone. Eventually, I grew into a person who realized that this was all ego, the result of grossly undervaluing the emotional intelligence of others while overestimating my powers of observation. I like to think I have put a lot of distance between the poet I was and the poet I am today.
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