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What do you think of immortality?

henri cole:

I don't understand this question.  Do you mean "immortality," like Keats's "Here lies one whose name was writ on water"?  If so, I think one is forgotten almost immediately after the earth is tossed back into the grave and the mourners turn away.  Life resumes.

So then why write?

henri cole:

For the completely selfish pleasure of composition, which for me surpasses the trumped-up pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex.  Since I do not write to teach anybody anything, it's a completely selfish act, but it gives me a sense of equilibrium and a reason for existence.  Nothing gives me as much pleasure, when I'm doing it well, as writing. 

--henri cole [the art of poetry #98; paris review 209]