The title of this post is stolen from an article referred to by Sean O’Brien and describes part of his point in this Guardian article on the vocation of poetry. “Poetry is an imaginative necessity for the poet, for good or ill,” he writes. He believes the creative process should be encouraged and taught by accomplished authors.

From the poet’s point of view (the other forms can look after themselves) this [encouragement] needs to be combined with a braking effect, a reminder that the point is not in the first place to publish but to learn to write as well as possible, to read everything, to think in terms of language rather than attitude, to master form, and not to mistake self-expression for art.

Publication may follow in time, but there are usually, and rightly, dues to be paid first, and maybe in perpetuity.

[via Books, Inq.]