But I'm too old to be written about as a young poet.

I say, Father, the years have brought me here, still your son, they have brought me to a life I cannot understand.

Now I must wait and be still and say nothing I don't know, nothing I haven't lived over and over, and that's everything.

I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others.

Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.

I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back.

But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity.