--- Douglas Barbour wrote:
> But Finnegan,
>
> I wasn't speaking of 'inspiration,' no more than I
> think Alison has been (I
> am not sure of Kona's comments in that way).
And indeed I don't think I am either, in the Romantic
sense of the word.
And nor am I suggesting that the "listening" I refer
to means either writing heavily "confessional" poetry
primarily about one's own psyche, or any kind of
so-called "automatic writing". Neither of these
activities has much appeal to me, to put it mildly.
The listening doesn't preclude intense engagement with
craft, or harnessing of "intellectual" faculties (eg
the hard mental labour of traditional forms); it
simply represents the "seed crystal" that gets the
process going.
Don Paterson has a wonderful quote on this in his
essay "The Dilemma of Being A Peot" [sic], but
unfortunately I don't have it to hand. I'll try to
dig it out tonight. The core of his point is that "If
you start with an *idea* for a poem [a purely
intellectual starting-point as opposed to a deeper
seed crystal of the kind I mean], you end up with a
lousy poem". I appreciate that this is a
not-uncontroversial point, but it certainly captures
my own subjective experience pretty well.
All best,
Kona.
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