Obstinacy For Sharon Olds To write bad poems may not be an art but it deserves to become something you don’t take lightly nor leave to the mercy of the moment. I’m considering that embracing my failures should be a daily practice, good for the soul and, hopefully, a way to keep the mind from attempting another coup d’etat on my happiness. Who knows? It might even prevent the quaratining of my imagination. In other words, let us write crap if we have to, let’s alleviate the bottleneck that may keep our good work from honking like a madman, motor running, at a standstill. Bad poems often are hard work that must be done, and what would the option be, to save yourself for later? Don’t you rake the leaves to help the blooming? I believe that a colony of weasels deserves as much love as an eagles’ convocation, and a parliament of owls is not safer than a leap of leopards. If the point is to avoid danger, I urge us to fall back in love with words and stand firm on hard weather, with the pride of an obstinacy of buffaloes. The heft of a good poem may depend on our thin legs.