What are the motifs in To an Unknown Poet by Carolyn Kizer?

Distance is a recurring idea in the poem. Kizer uses the idea of distance both figuratively and literally in her poem to highlight the gap between the haves and the have nots. First, the speaker emphasizes the distance between her success, and the failure of the unknown poet, through her condescending descriptions of his struggles, and the self-congratulatory descriptions of her achievements. She also emphasizes the distance in age, noting, "I'm not as young as I was," and then comparing the unknown poet with Rimbaud's "boy's face and broken teeth."