The memoir traces a poet's lifelong engagement with verse, beginning with childhood inspirations and early experiments in form, and follows his development through periods of struggle, revision, and uneven recognition. He reflects on incentives and fortunate breaks, recounts friendships and meetings with fellow writers, and examines the practical and aesthetic challenges of editing and publishing. The narrative alternates personal anecdote and critical reflection, surveying the influence of place, economic hardship, and travel on creative life. Interwoven are meditations on craft, the tension between tradition and novelty, and the reasons that sustained a persistent devotion to writing poetry.