“The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.”

The New York Times (16 December 1969)

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Do you have more details about the quote "The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it." by Robert Penn Warren?
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Robert Penn Warren 49
American poet, novelist, and literary critic 1905–1989

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Context: When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

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