Not less than everything ...

... What Poetry Demands. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

All ambition has begun to have the reek of disease to me, the relentless smell of the self. We want to stamp our existence upon existence, our nature upon nature. We are pursuing a ghost—even my image of the dead participates in this—rather than a god.

And that is the issue, at least for me. I do think a life in poetry is a calling, but for a long time I was unwilling to admit that the call might come from God. And if he is the one calling, then he is the only one who can ratify your response.

Here is my review of Ambition and Survival: A poet reconciling verse and living.