i suppose it depends whether the poet wants to ever achieve a "finished"
object with its negative intrinsic possibilities - or whether they always
want to be "on the way" - until death shuts the door on the drafts?
e
Subject: Re: Destroying preparatory work (was Re: Inspiration)
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This is reminding me of an exchange I had with Robin Hamilton a while back.
He says that all drafts form part of the overall poem and should therefore
be kept. I suspect he's thinking of this from a scholar's point of view, the
'whole poem' being the one, with notes, in the eventual variorum edition.
But I reckon all of those possibilities are in there by virtue of having
been decided against, and will therefore be instrinsic in the finished poem.
I can't remember who won this argument -- probably we both got sidetracked
onto another subject and abandoned it for the time being. But is this
something anyone else has any ideas on?
joanna
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