Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator.
I'm fortunate in being able to find great satisfaction in my work.
You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel.
Contradictory strands create an essay that's richly ambivalent.
The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.
Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.