I've been reading through this thread with some interest, especially the
question of technical skill/technique versus the
intuitive/"given"/inspirational aspect of writing. It has made me think of
something Hayden Carruth wrote in an essay I read a long time ago that I
have not been able to lay my hands on a this moment about how poets (he may
have said "master poets" or something similar) internalize the technical
aspect of writing poetry so thoroughly that it becomes second nature to
them, so that, whether they are writing what they think has been entirely
given or are just slogging through a piece, trying to get it to an ending,
they are always already--at least unconsciously and sometimes
half-consciously--making use of technique and technical skills that they had
learned at another time. Carruth's take on this feels true to me, at least
true to my own experience of writing--though I also agree with Joanna that
sometimes technical skill is what you need "to make or continue a poem" so
that "it can sometimes come alive in my hands and turn out to be one of my
better ones."
The other thing this thread has been making me think about is the experience
of translating Saadi, whose first book I am now working on, into blank
verse, because I am relying a good deal more on technical skill to make the
language sing than on anything else. Not that inspiration plays no part, but
the content of the poetry is already given in so much more literal a way
than we mean when we talk about inspiration.... Don't know where I was going
with that; but the difference between translating and producing my own
poems, doing both at the same time, made this conversation very relevant.
Richard
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