I often find myself going over a poem I have written that I quite like and stewing in fear that nothing as good will ever come to me again. But the longer I keep looking at that poem, the longer I surely prevent the possibility of writing anything else – good or bad?!

The mind really has to be relaxed to write (well). It cannot be living in fear that nothing will come. You have to let go, all the time, of anything you have ever written so as to let something fresh come. You have to trust the source, which I suppose means remembering that it is not ‘me’ who comes up with this or that. ‘I’ can only get quiet and relaxed enough so that ‘this or that’ descends upon me or bubbles up into me.

So you can’t dwell on past poems or worry about future poems, you can only relax and be quiet right where you are and see what is given. It is all given. Well, maybe I have to shape a little what is given and in that I have to trust any fraction of skill I may have gained over the years. So the whole process is at once both easier and harder than you imagine. Easier because all you have to do is be quiet, relax, and enjoy yourself. Harder because everything in you has been trained to do the exact opposite of this.