... the reason why there are so few first-class poets is that many people have intense feelings or first-class minds but to get the two together so that you will be willing to put a poem through sixty drafts, to be that self-critical, to keep breaking it down, that is what is rare. Right now most poetry is just self-indulgence.
ATTRIBUTION:
May Sarton (1912–1995), U.S. author. As quoted in Women Writers Talking, ch. 1, by Janet Todd (1983).
