Great article from the November Poetry Magazine

[rayheinrich]

Over-thinking a poem while in the midst of writing quickly leads to writers block.

How true (personally verified and externally unsubstantiated).

Relying on the mundane mind to write poetry usually gives one mundane poetry.

On the face of it this rings true, though, modestly, it is impossible
for me to personally verify this.

... Most people are such control freaks that they do not like the idea that a
part of the mind over which they have no control, writes the poems.

And yet they accept their ability to text while driving (ironic obversity intended).

Yet, what do they mean when they say they were inspired, does it only mean that
something "out there" reminded them of something of which they wrote a poem about.
Not to be disrespectful, but it amazes me at what a superficial level people examine,
and are aware of their own minds...Ray
Dale

And yet I feel most deeply that this "they" must be forgiven for not
being conscious of their subconscious. Can a mind being aware of itself?
This is both burlesquely paradoxical and experiencially self-evident.  

Except for us.

Oh hell! We might as well admit it:

We are the elite.

As modestly and sincerely as always,
Ray


“Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk.
But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian,
or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.”
-- Peter De Vries from "Reuben, Reuben"
(The phrase "write drunk, edit sober" is often attributed, apocryphally it seems)
to the always earnest Ernest Hemingway.)