The poem
Whispering to each handhold, "I'll be back," I go up the cliff in the dark. One place I loosen a rock and listen a long time till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind -- I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward...
I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble by luck into a little pocket out of the wind and begin to beat on the stones with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth in silent laughter there in the dark-- "Made it again!" Oh how I love this climb! -- the whispering to the stones, the drag, the weight as your muscles crack and ease on, working right. They are back there, discontent, waiting to be driven forth. I pound on the earth, riding the earth past the stars: "Made it again! Made it again!"
This same poem appears as written by William Stafford in The Way It Is, New & Selected Poems, page 194, published 1998 by Graywolf Press, which says it appeared in Stafford's A Glass Face in the Rain, Harper & Row, 1982. Someone needs to clarify whether Stafford or Oliver wrote After Arguing Against the Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent.
In any case, the message is solid. Writing that is contrary to the message seems shrill and hollow, while writing in the spirit of this poem is rich with comforts and discomforts.