For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things.
Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.