I've been "commissioned" to write a poem about a particular subject. It sounds strange, but there is a certain comfort and freedom in having a poem asked of you in terms you can hardly refuse. (More about this later.) Anyway, I was looking for an old poem of mine on a similar subject, and found some others I had written before the age of 20. For example,

Hyacinths... Roses...

I seem to belong to a brotherhood
of the half-hearted, disbelieving in
my own emotions... I admit nothing
but what I bring wrapped in old newspapers.

Now I'm not embarrassed by that at all. I was probably 15 when I wrote it, but I can tell, re-reading it, that I had learned something from Pound and Creeley. Not only that, but I don't think I'm a better poet now than then in any meaningful sense. No wonder I hated the condescension of adults. It is oddly comforting to know that a lot of what I do know about poetry I have known for a long time. That might explain my impatience with Billy Collinses of the world. They are like the stupid adults of my childhood, (from the adolescent arrogant perspective that is still a part of me).

"Hyacinths..." was rejected by Poetry magazine! How could they! I know I worked hours on it, perfecting the rhythm and phrasing and punctuation but ensuring that the actual labor was concealed in the final product. (Ars est celare artem). I feel both close and distant to the writer who wrote this. Distant enough to respect him from afar.