AUTHORSHIP
Age 13, Sharon Connecticut, 1957
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
Robert Graves
At the age of thirteen
I knew this:
Working draft (left) of The Tyger (opening line: Tyger Tyger burning bright) and finished poem with illustration (right).
William Blake produced a large body of work but did not worry about his audience and was virtually unknown. Only years after his death would he be considered one of the great Romantic writers and painters.
Whether my writing
was good or bad,
liked or disliked
was not important
Orson Welles (right)
-- whose fictional radio program, War of the Worlds, caused a sensation --
being interviewed by writers and reporters.
I had no choice
but to be a writer
