I recently was commissioned by some friends to write a poem entitled The Space Under the Window, and I decided to write it about a deceased cat that belonged to them. It was a very rambling, lyrical, daydreamy thing, made of backward heroic sestets. I liked it, but it was kind of weird and long, and I didn't know what sort of reactions I would get. 

The first two people who read the poem (one of whom was not related to the cat) choked up and cried. It was a big victory for me. I've done that before with some other poems -- a few tears or lots of praise -- but rarely with such an effective response. Granted, I was playing into the hands of cat-lovers (and, OK, both readers knew Iggy, whom the poem is really about), but still, I felt slighty mischevious and smug: I was carrying an emotional hand-grenade in my pocket.

This is why I write, on one level. I like the idea that words on paper can evoke a strong emotional response in someone else. The time one spends wrenching out poetry is worth the applause -- whether it comes as laughter, tears, or kisses. 

There is also a desire to have a part of me live on after I die. I hope to write a poem that makes a person whom I don't know laugh or cry someday. I can remember a short poem by e. e. cummings that I was reading one day, entitled Tumbling hair. The entire meaning of the poem hit me as I read the very last word. After the initial shock of the meaning, I thought: Man! That guy has timing! How did he know I would read his poem exactly this way? I think that somehow, sometimes through pure talent, sometimes through hard work, the great poets have found out a lot about their human audience, and because of their discoveries, even after death they have been able to whisper to us.

This is why I want to be a poet; because I have to vent my thoughts, because I am enamored of sounds and rhythm, and because I need to affect an audience -- hopefully even after I am no longer here.