I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing.

This quote is suggesting that poems can be helpful in discovering and understanding ourselves. Writing poems can give us a feeling of self-respect and help us to make progress and move forward in life. However, to continue this journey of discovery, we must keep writing more poems. We do this because life is constantly changing and evolving, and writing poems helps us to stay on track.