In any case, from all I’ve read and heard, some of the most unlikely people have been given the gift of poetry. Poetry seems to like to go its own way, keeping its own “leggo beast” company with whomever it pleases. Hence, all sorts of upstarts and “unsuitable” people—Shakespeare being chief among them— are poets.

I also realized that a big part of my initial reluctance to fully embrace my gifts was that I always feared it would bring great upheaval and uncertainty to my life. Boy, was I ever right. I had to leave my first marriage, become estranged from my family for a time, and make what in retrospect now seems like a series of quite reckless, unwise, inexplicably lonely, and alienating life choices. But somehow, from where I now stand, it all seems to have worked together for good.

I remember once speaking aloud, presumably to poetry, and saying something like, Okay, I’ll go along with this business of being a poet on one condition. I want to grow, to develop to be the best that I can be at this. Now do what you want to do with me.