apoetreflects:

“What I would say is this: Writing poems doesn’t make you a poet … It is only with poetry, for some reason, that everyone wants to believe they can try their hand at it once in a while and be considered, can call themselves a poet … It’s a craft. It’s an art. It’s a skill. It is not therapy, and it is not compensation for terrible things in one’s life. It is a thing in itself. You devote yourself to being an instrument of it, or you wander forever in the belief that it is a form of “self-expression.” … And I explained very clearly my opinion of what I think a poet, an artist is. Someone who puts this thing first.”

—Franz Wright