1. He has enjoyed reading others' poetry so much that he wants to repeat his enjoyment with poems of his own.

2. He wants to provide others with poetry he thinks they'll enjoy--and therefore give himself the pleasure of enjoying their enjoyment. (Herein, I might add, lies the value of Posterity--or those wonderful people to whom even the most obscure poet can imagine himself being as other once-obscure poets like Keats and Blake have been to him. Yes, there's a little autobiography there.)

3. He has something to say to which he believes only he can do justice--that is, he has a need for self-expression. This need might be simply to share his love of tall ships with others, for example, or it might be to try to convert them to some religion or political theory. The point is, what counts is saying rather than making something.

4. He wants approval--most usually, in the beginning, the approval of some adult poetry-lover, probably a teacher who persuades him (directly--or merely by applauding someone else's poem) to try to write a poem. If he is naive enough, he might also dream that by writing a terrific poem, he might gain such larger forms of social approval as fame and love as well.

5. He wants to earn money, and insanely believes that writing a poem with accomplish this.

6. He wants to capture some precious moment in words.

7. He wants to solve personal problems--that is, to re-render (consciously or unconsciously) his notion of the past so it feels better. I think this an inferior reason for art, and not mine, but it is probably a motive, some small motive, behind some art.

8. There is also what I call the Hillary Motivation--a person sees poetry as a challenge worth meeting simply because it's there. He wants to prove he can conquer it, or to find out if he can conquer it--as well as experience what conquering it, or trying to conquer it, is like. I sexistly call this the Male Motivation as well as the Hillary Motivation; I term the desire for approval the Female Motivation.

9. He wants to experience creative pleasure. This does not consist of what one experiences, pleasurably, from the content of his work. It is also outside approval, competiveness, and the like. It is simply the pleasure of effectively putting something together--in this case, a poem; in others, a house, say, or a model airplane. Making, not saying. As Gulley Jimson, the painter-protagonist of Joyce Carey's novel, The Horse's Mouth, most wonderfully puts it: "Certainly an artist has no right to complain of his fate. For he has great pleasures. To start new pictures. Even the worst artist that ever was, even a one-eyed mental deficient with the shakes in both hands who sets out to paint the chicken-house, can enjoy the first stroke. Can think, By God, look what I've done. A miracle. I have transformed a chunk of wood, canvas, etc., into a spiritual fact, an eternal beauty. I am God. Yes, the beginning, the first stroke on a picture, must be one of the greatest pleasures open to mankind." This kind of joy (not only in first strokes, but middle and final strokes) is by far what I most seek when I write poetry.

One other question needs some sort of answer while we're on this topic: why would one choose poetry as a vocation rather than--chemistry, for example, or selling insurance? I think it all depends on what kind of mind one is born with. A human being is compelled to exercise his mind (all of it, not just his intellect) as intensely and fully as he can (regardless of upbringing and such trivialities). Grumman's Dogma: "ability" is a synonym for "need." My particular inherent mix of abilities made writing and theoretical psychology the fields that most engaged my mind, so those are what I have pursued. And my particular inherent mix of verbal abilities made occasionally trying to make some kind of short formal lyric a necessity for me.