You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel.

Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator.

A personal essay often includes some or a lot of personal confession. That makes the reader feel less lonely in their confusion and darkness.

Contradictory strands create an essay that's richly ambivalent.

For most of my life, I have wanted broad impact but now, at 72, I'm not so sure that's always my first priority.

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.

If someone in my family is getting emotionally bent out of shape, I've had to learn to adapt.