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Thread: When Does Poetic Inspiration Change to Calculation?

  1. #16
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    I want to thank all of you for commenting. The OP stated what I, and only I, had experienced. I requested feedback and I received it. Thank you.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

  2. #17
    Whosie Whatsie? Ser Nevarc's Avatar
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    I hope you're writing again!

  3. #18
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    I will write till the day I die.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

  4. #19
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    When I write poetry, I have to wait for inspiration- something to pop into my head. I cannot just sit down and write a poem. However, when the inspiration does strike, I have to write it down there and then before it goes again.
    Once it is written, I don't edit or revise it because then it becomes calculated. By sticking to what I wrote in the moment, I feel I more accurately capture what was in my mind at the time. But i have very long periods of no poem writing purely because I have to wait for the inspiration. This is of course, just my own personal experience- everyone is different

  5. #20
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    When I was in my twenties and thirties, I composed poetry in a red heat; it gushed out of me. As I grew older--on into my forties and fifties, I gradually slowed down in composing poetry because inspiration in general had left me, and I was left with calculation, experience and memory. Now that I'm sixty-five I still compose poetry--perhaps a poem every few months. I am much more objective about my poetry, and it takes me sometimes months to revise a poem. But I have to say, the poetry I compose now is better, because of the revisions I make.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

  6. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Jassy Melson View Post
    When I was in my twenties and thirties, I composed poetry in a red heat; it gushed out of me. As I grew older--on into my forties and fifties, I gradually slowed down in composing poetry because inspiration in general had left me, and I was left with calculation, experience and memory. Now that I'm sixty-five I still compose poetry--perhaps a poem every few months. I am much more objective about my poetry, and it takes me sometimes months to revise a poem. But I have to say, the poetry I compose now is better, because of the revisions I make.
    I think I understand your point and I'm glad you are still writing. I'm not sure that "inspiration" ever really "leaves" a writer. Inspiration is hard to define. It does seem that it depends on the ability to personally experience strong emotions along with a sense of wonder and even astonishment at whatever triggers these emotions and a desire to express in words the experience so that the experience can be shared publicly. Almost all of us (there may be exceptions for what psychiatry calls "psychopaths") are capable of feeling strong sharable emotions that could serve as poetic inspiration. And I can even imagine that a psychopath might be able to write good poetry. In Cold Blood, though not written by the psychopathic killers, still seems to describe psychopathic behavior and perception quite well...and makes fascinating literature.

    There is a Romantic notion that great poetry is written when the poet is under the overwhelming control of strong emotions that come from outside influences...e.g. the muses, mental illness, or intoxicating drugs, and that the poem needs to be written while under that "inspiration." The classic example is Kublai Khan, which Coleridge left "unfinished" because his narcotic high wore off before he could "finish" the poem.

    There's another way of looking at this, which allows for both the "classic" inspiration and refinement of the poem while the poet is more "in-control" of his brain. I remember reading somewhere that Alexander the Great and his Generals used to review battle strategies while they were drunk and while sober. If the plan looked good while they were drunk and sober, they adopted the plan with a very high degree of confidence. This approach ought to work for poets as well as generals...The "sober" part for poets would refer to the "uninspired" revision of the poem.

  7. #22
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    Thank you all for commenting. You have given me much to ponder.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

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    Calculation has a lot going for it. More brainpower for a start. My closest friend is a poet. For over forty years she has been frequently inspired, often by church sermons, to compose, sometimes three or four poems at a time. The muse hits her randomly however and might leave for a period of weeks. She does little by way of redrafting though she does take advice . I scrawl the occasional rabht myself and sometimes tear at a verse until any original inspiration is covered in drifts of calculation.

  9. #24
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    I really believe that the longer one writes, the better one gets (unless one is, to put it bluntly, an idiot); so I must say now that I've been writing and composing for about fifty years, I am a better writer than I was, say, thirty years ago. But I now write without "inspiration." What I do now is give a lot of thought to what I want to write about, and how I'm going to write it. Where does inspiration fit in to my writing now? It doesn't. Of course I have to be interested in something enough to write about it, but I no longer feel about composing and writing as I did thirty years ago. It's not something that I feel compelled to do--which I did feel thirty years ago.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

  10. #25
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jassy Melson View Post
    I will write till the day I die.
    To write is to grasp the meanings of life. If it is not then we are not on the right track or so I believe and so yes keep on writing until you do.
    And writing has no age and that is the ultimate beauty of literature it is boundless and until we achieve that then we are tied to our old ways ie growing old to it and not with it.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  11. #26
    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    You got it.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

  12. #27
    Registered User tailor STATELY's Avatar
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    A thread I missed some 10 years ago started by Jassy Melson with some good feedback/insights re: inspiration in writing (or not)

    From cacian:
    To write is to grasp the meanings of life. If it is not then we are not on the right track or so I believe and so yes keep on writing until you do.
    And writing has no age and that is the ultimate beauty of literature it is boundless and until we achieve that then we are tied to our old ways ie growing old to it and not with it.
    ... so very true

    From my point of view I started writing poetry, with the exception of one lost piece circa 1986, in 2003, 5- months or so shy of my 50th birthday, a late bloomer. There have been times where different muses inspired me and times when I took time off altogether. Nearing my 70's I continue to write poetry for the love of it, and like Jassy, will continue until I die. It's only been a year or so where I have joined a local poetry group to share my joy of writing poetry with others other than LitNet (2009- ) and stretch beyond my comfort zone. Writers evolve as long as they continue to write, and as others have said, as long as they put in the work whether reading and learning and writing, in this case, poetry. Inspiration will come and go in various ways. Jassy, praying you are writing still whatever your circumstance, be it here or beyond the veil

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
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    who am I but a stitch in time
    what if I were to bare my soul
    would you see me origami

    7-8-2015

  13. #28
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    I have never seen myself as a poetry writer. My dream, one I haven´t given up yet, is to write some good prose. Yet I´m enjoying to write poems for these forum as it gives me more ability with the English language. I have to think much less to compose a sentence. The inspiration would be the idea for the poem and the calculated part, make the poem fit into its particulat scheme (aspects of form like rhyme verses and rhythm and aspects of content (thematic details and images).
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  14. #29
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    I certainly know where Jassy Melson is coming from.

    I can remember writing lots of doggerel in my early years, in response to strong stimuli. A series of maybe 8 pieces which were quite witty (for a 13yo) in response to hatred of a particular teacher. A piece, which I still maintain qualifies as poetry, in response to the first time I left my son in childcare.

    Then in my 50s every strong emotion started pouring out of me in rhythm, sometimes with rhyme attached. I would often not notice the rhymes until several days later.

    I would rarely return from the beach without something fully formed in my head, needing to write it down quick.

    A game on another forum where people posted a single trigger word for the next poster was enough to prompt some awful drek, as well as some things I liked.

    After about five years of that I was prescribed a drug which was meant to relieve some nasty abdominal pain I was experiencing. Suddenly I was considering suicide (not typical of me), my joints went all loose and I was totally unable to string two words together. So I can see where someone might "lose" whatever chemical combination was supporting creativity. The loss wouldn't necessarily have to be introduced from outside the body.

    Jassy Melson seems to be able to craft some acceptable output. I have written since, but I don't like any of it.

    I have always wanted to write a villanelle, and was frankly waiting for one to pop into my head, just requiring a little buff with a clean cloth. Now I can't imagine feeling strongly enough about anything to make that happen.

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