An artist
needs
not so much
an audience
as to feel
a need to answer,
a promise
to respond.
The response may
be a contradiction,
it may be unwanted,
it may go unheeded,
it may be embraced
but twisted
but it is owed,
and the sense
that it is owed
is a basic requirement
for the poet’s good feeling
about the art.
This need to answer,
as firm as the borrowed object
or cash debt,
is the ground
the Centaur walks.
Robert Pinsky, from Poetry and the World (p. 85)
Some found poems
Annie Dillard, on the writing life
Published by Anthony Wilson
I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, is available now from Blue Diode Publishing. My current research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.
View all posts by Anthony Wilson
Lifesaving Poems 
Reblogged this on English Lit Geek and commented:
We all have a need to answer…
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