How to Survive as a Poet

In high school she showed her poems and they were terrible. She gave me Best American Poetry 1993, the Louise Glick issue. Lard of the State Irene McKinney encouraged us to write our truth. Tim Dugo's Healing the World from Battery Park is in there. Denise Duhamel's feminism. There's just so many amazing poems. And then as I started finding better poems, I was like, oh my gosh, these people are weirdos too. You know, I love and I use weirdo with just affection.