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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>0005 Letter to a Younger Poet</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thanks for your letter. Though<br>you’ve caught me at a rather awkward time –<br>I’m going into surgery tomorrow – a rather<br>risky op; so I’ll try to put all the answers that I’ve got<br>into this one letter; <br>I hope you'll understand...</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">and that helps me to make my first point to you: <br>write as if you, too, may not live<br>beyond tomorrow – write as if<br>it’s the last thing that you’ll ever write –<br>give it everything you’ve got, <br>hold nothing back; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">or better still – write as if<br>the world will end for everyone tomorrow: <br>write so that in their last hours, too, this<br>will make them feel, will make them know<br>we’ve faced life fully, faced it so complete<br>that death is relatively unimportant now…</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if it were only yesterday<br>that, in an air crash, all your family –<br>parents, wife or husband, partner, children, and best friend, <br>had lost their lives; write as if, <br>were you not to write, <br>your heart would break forever, or you would go mad... </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if you’re writing somewhere<br>where there’s no such thing around, as ink; <br>you’ll have to use your own blood in the pen, <br>so use it carefully; so red, so living, <br>look at it… so beautiful, so precious, <br>and so solemn – use it carefully, don’t spill a drop…</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if you’re borrowing every word<br>from the very centre of the universe, where suns and gods are made; <br>and need thus to account for every word<br>with your whole life, no less; know that every word<br>must be given back, cleaner, stronger, brighter<br>with your own power, than when you borrowed it; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if every poet that ever lived<br>is leaning over your shoulder, so that you<br>can feel their breath upon your neck as they say<br>‘Tell them all that we would tell, <br>but cannot now; tell them all of this’…<br>this, now, is how you must deeply be and speak; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if you are the only being on earth<br>who can tell them this; as if tomorrow, if tomorrow comes, <br>you shall visit them every one, at home, <br>and look them in the eye; write as if<br>you love them more than they will ever know; <br>write as if you were offering to live their lives with them; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if you were a force of nature in yourself: <br>as if whatever earthquake, hurricane or flood might do, <br>whatever law or love may greatly do, <br>whatever gods or men can speak, in fullest force, <br>this you may do, because the sound of poetry is such; <br>yes, write ‘as if’ – but know you really write ‘because’…</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write as if – no, write because –<br>you know that only poetry can tell<br>all, that must be told, and must be known; <br>and as all hearts melt in the heat of your own love, <br>be in no doubt – and see that all are in no doubt too –<br>that life was never, never more serious, <br>never more glorious, than it is right now; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460365" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">write all this.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a></strong></div>