Rilke had said to this young poet, “I sense this is what you’re doing, you’re writing for the critics. You’re writing to please the critics.” He says, “That’ll never work. Because they’re not pleasable. You must write to please yourself. And then they might be pleased, you know. But they’re secondary to what you do.” And so this all began to fall into place for me and I respect what critics do, but I don’t — their work trails mine. I mean, I’ve done my work, and I’m gonna keep looking ahead, and not behind at some reflection.