An ulcer is an unkissed imagination taking its revenge for having been jilted. It is an undanced dance, an unpainted watercolor, an unwritten poem. You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. But when the pen is in his hand he has to write by itch and twitch, though certainly his itch and twitch are intimately conditioned by all his past itching and twitching, and by all his past theorizing about them. What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down. Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar. The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow. John Ciardi (1916-1986) Poet