I write these words in secret, as my vocation
for verse is not something I am prepared
to casually admit. Though I am not
a tortured soul, nor tormented by grand passion,
I am afraid that my poetry may
be tainted by association with the
lunatics and the fey, the ravers and
romantics, who founded a tradition for
tragedy. So I follow a strategy of
silence and pseudonyms to conceal my
creativity, while I feign a normality
and concentrate on being ordinary.
There is a meagre pleasure in this measured
life, but I am not prepared to dare the
ridicule commensurate with pretensions
to art. Instead, I wallow in the guilt of
failing to compensate for my abstention
from voting in favour of a poet’s heart.
