When I was in graduate school and teaching an intro creative writing course, I was walking down the library steps one afternoon and suddenly realized I knew almost nothing about writing. Why nouns and verbs, for instances? Why anything for that matter?

I stood there in the rain pondering the difficulty of creative work. I also guessed it would always be hard for me.

That, at least, decades later I now see, was one thing I was right about in my life. Since then, maybe I’ve gleaned one or two things: sometimes less is stronger, and sometimes you need to push and push, going for broke.

Here’s a poem from David Budbill’s lovely posthumous collection.

Say what you see.
Get it down right.

Accuracy is plenty.

What’s here
is good enough.