I have been so immersed in other people's work that I have almost forgotten how to read my own. So when I got a note on Friday from CavanKerry Press I was afraid to open it. The subject was my forthcoming collection; the note included pre-press comments from the manuscript editor on the state of the ms.

I didn't want to know what anyone thought; I just didn't want to know. This reaction had nothing to do with defensiveness, or distrust of criticism, or lack of respect for the editor's eye, or anything of the sort. Maybe fear is the word--fear that nothing I've written will make sense to me when I look at it again, that the poems will have lost all power to speak. It's stupid to stay so raw about one's creations. But how can anyone help it?