This Continent, An Open Palm Spread Frank

Some People Get Where They Hope To In This World. Most Of Us Don't.

One Thing I Feel Is This: That A Great Deal Of Poetry Is The Product Of Adolescence-or Of An Emotionally Adolescent Frame Of Mind: And That As This State Of Mind Changes, Poetry Is Likely To Dry Up.

You've Got To Bear It In Mind That Nobody That Ever Lived Is Specially Privileged; The Axe Can Fall At Any Moment, On Any Neck, Without Any Warning Or Any Regard For Justice.

And No Matter What, There's Not One Thing In This World *or* The Next That We Can Do Or Hope Or Guess At Or Wish Or Pray That Can Change It Or Help It One Iota. Because Whatever Is, Is. That's All. And All There Is Now Is To Be Ready For It, Strong Enough For It, Whatever It May Be. That's All. That's All That Matters. It's All That Matters Because It's All That's Possible.

I'm Very Anxious Not To Fall Into Archaism Or 'literary' Diction. I Want My Vocabulary To Have A Very Large Range, But The Words Must Be Alive.