I can't write poetry. I don't mean I write bad poetry, I mean I can't. I've tried, occasionally, but it's like a physical inability: I try to form the words that way, and it feels like trying to levitate...it's not that it's a clumsy or unsuccessful attempt, it's that it's so far from succeeding that it doesn't even seem to be an attempt. Sometimes this makes me sad, when I read a verse that makes the hair stand up on my neck...it must be a good feeling to be able to do that, even badly.

But it could be worse. I am able to love poetry, to read it and feel it flowing through my soul. Like Salieri in Amadeus, I have the gift of recognizing art when I see it, even though I can't produce it.

Some people can't even do that, which...must be like being born without part of your body. A few years ago, I remember sitting on the smoker's patio as a very intelligent acquaintance explained, with pride, that poetry held no appeal for him -- in his opinion, the syllogism was infinitely more beautiful. Those of us listening were silent, ashamed for him; it was like hearing a blind man explain how he had never been fooled by all this color shit. Your heart feels sorry for someone like that...to be born unable to perceive that kind of beauty is one tragedy; to be unable even to perceive one's disability seems like a greater one.

On the other hand, I can write a damn good prose sentence on occasion, and that makes me happy. What I aspire to is to write prose that rises to the level of poetry, like Faulkner or Thomas Wolfe. There are passages in Look Homeward, Angel that are as beautiful as anything I've ever read. They have the same kind of electrifying effect as poetry, where the sound of the words touches the soul as much as the images they represent. 'O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.'

Needless to say, I've got a ways to go. But it's good to have goals.