Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.

Best to say that once a poem is finished I trust it to make its way, and I trust readers will find their way to it and through it, if the thing has got itself rightly expressed.

The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful...

Walk on air against your better judgement.

The appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year.

Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.