There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time.
If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.
I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.
This is a book written by someone obsessed, stricken and deeply loving. There is nothing like it in literature.