May Sarton’s observation on the role inspiration plays in creating poems holds true for all creative work:
In poetry I know that I can’t write in form unless the intensity is very great. In other words, I have to be inspired to use form. But when I am, then I can put a poem through sixty drafts to get that final crystalline thing that I want. I think of it when I’m teaching. The poem works like an aeroplane - it flies because of all the tension, the mechanical tensions within it. Every screw has to be screwed in exactly right, every single thing has to be balanced exactly right. And a poem is only as strong as its weakest word. It will not fly, doesn’t soar in the mind unless it has form. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 260.)
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For a brief biography of May Sarton, click here.
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