Why Write?

I feel I should say something about this at the outset. I write, because I'm a fan of those who I read. I want to be in their gang, and writing lets me tag along, like a tolerated runt. The fact that I write allows me to read, as an insider. I feel I stand in a relationship of confidentiality toward the poet and his or her work, and this encourages a reading that is more vertical, a listening in, like tip-toeing down a spiral staircase at night [when really your supposed to be in your bed]. Some poets I have been reading closely, over and over, again and again, for years. It took 10 years of reading Yeats before I started to gain a sense of incipience in his work. Whereas, if you read Plath, very quickly you gain a sense of the origin of the poem, because the distance it travels from conception to completion is so much less, is traversed so quickly, and is usually enacted right there in front of you, in wide-eyed surprise. If I didn't write, I believe I would lose the sense of dialogue I have with various poets. I'm a painfully minor poet attempting to engage major themes, but this shortfall does not dismay me, as long as my efforts allow me to keep such excellent company.