“The cost of a thing,” as Henry David Thoreau observed, “is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it.” Poetry, by this calculus, is an unusually costly vocation, as it depends on a dual exchange: firstly, of life into the variable currency of poetic possibility, and, secondly, of that possibility into the minted currency of the page. In each case, of course, the medium of exchange is time—to live (aren’t we, after all, daydreaming prisoners of experience?) and, then, to get the words wrong until blessedly getting them right. I’ve never quite believed that time is money, but—like Thoreau, like all workers, like all writers—I know that money can be converted into time. In this respect, a fellowship from the NEA is not only life-affirming, but life-giving, since time—to live, to write—is what the generosity of the NEA affords. With the NEA’s crucial sponsorship, I will be able to complete my second poetry collection, Indirect Light, and initiate the work that will propel me toward a third. In the modern era, the NEA constitutes an utterly irreplaceable source of benefaction, and I am honored to count myself among the many artists whose vocations have been enabled by its recognition and support.