E.M. Welcher’s Reviews > Conversations with Shelby Foote > Status Update

Shelby Foote: That’s right. I don’t know, personally, of any writer who didn’t start out trying to be a poet, and I think this is right and exactly as it should be. I haven’t known any good prose writers who didn’t give up poetry.

They gave it up.

John Graham: I remember Faulkner saying he gave it up because he wasn’t good enough.

Shelby Foote: Called himself a failed poet…