[John Cole]

Advice from T.S. Eliot: Poetry is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality. Of course, one must have a personality to recognize this.

And, some advice from Wordsworth: I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins . . .

And some advice from me: Unless you began writing poetry by age twelve or thirteen, then forget it. Use the personal essay form to say what you want to say.