The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

I must say what I admire most is the person who masters an area of practical experience, and can teach me something. I mean, my local midwife has taught me how to keep bees. Well, she can't understand anything I write. And I find myself liking her, may I say, more than most poets. And among my friends I find people who know all about boats or know all about certain sports, or how to cut somebody open and remove an organ. I'm fascinated by this mastery of the practical.

Doing all the little tricky things it takes to grow up, step by step, into an anxious and unsettling world.

So learn about life. Cut yourself a big slice with the silver server, a big slice of pie. Open your eyes. Let life happen.

Feel oddly barren. My sickness is when words draw in their horns and the physical world refuses to be ordered, recreated, arranged and selected. I am a victim of it then, not a master.

Do I like to write? Why? About what? Will I give up and say, "Living and feeding a man's insatiable guts and begetting children occupies my whole life. Don't have time to write"?

I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.