A Poet's Self-Criticism

 I just learned of the poet James Wright (sorry, the literary world is so expansive that we all have holes of knowledge) and this quote about being criticized as "glib."

"My family background is partly Irish, and this means many things, but linguistically it means that it is too easy for me to talk sometimes. I keep thinking of Horace's idea which Byron so very accurately expressed in a letter . . . 'Easy writing is damned hard reading.' I suffer from glibness. . . . I have [to struggle] to strip my poems down."

'Easy writing is damned hard reading.' Yes, I need that today. I wrote a short story for my writers group in one setting, typed it up with some edits, and submitted it for the bi-weekly meeting. They liked the idea . . . but I could tell on the re-reading that it was "easy writing," too effortless, too fast, too full of myself. The idea was one I wanted to get on paper without paying attention enough to the execution. 

It's the story, by the way, I posted a few days ago.