/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4103223]

What is the most important gift or quality that a poet can naturally have?

If you could be born with a natural talent for one of the tools that integrate the craft of poetry, what would it be?

[Anonymous No.4103232]

Originality. Seems pretty hard to write something that's worth mentioning to anyone but myself.

[Anonymous No.4103237]

Compassion.

[Anonymous No.4103248]

>>4103223
Capacity for hard work.

[Anonymous No.4103251]

>>4103223

I'm with Aristotle in this:

>But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.

The ability to create metaphors is the greatest gift that a poet can possess; its more important than gifts to things like rhythm, rhyme and versification.

[Anonymous No.4103260]

>>4103248

This is important to all fields of human endeavor, whether in the arts, sciences, sports, war, etc..

[Anonymous No.4104831]

>>4103223
>What is the most important gift or quality that a poet can naturally have?

Be Dante.

[Anonymous No.4104835]

>>4103237
This.

>>4103251
Most of 20th century poems are devoid of metaphors. So are Keats' poems.

[Anonymous No.4104837]

Poems are for pussies yo

[Anonymous No.4104847]

>>4103223
You need to like find words that end like other words

[Anonymous No.4104848]

>>4104847
>>4104837
fgs

[Anonymous No.4104857]

>>4104848
You juts dont undestand the genius

[Anonymous No.4105214]

>>4104831

Be Shakespeare, sir, be Shakespeare, good sir.

>>4104835
>Most of 20th century poems are devoid of metaphors.

That's why they are not the best of all time.

>>4104835
>So are Keats' poems.

No. Keats was a great admirer of Shakespeare, and although he did not have the same colossal and overwhelming imagination, he used to fertilize his texts with great imagery. An example:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

On of his most famous lines is, no wonder, one of his best metaphors:

hough seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine

Also, some of Milton's best lines are that in wich he gave himself to the pleasure of imagery:

Wherefore did Nature powre her bounties forth, [ 710 ]
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,
Thronging the Seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please, and sate the curious taste?
And set to work millions of spinning Worms, [ 715 ]
That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silk
To deck her Sons; and that no corner might
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loyns
She hutch't th' all-worshipt ore and precious gems
To store her children with; if all the world [ 720 ]
Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but Frieze,
Th' all-giver would be unthank't, would be unprais'd,
Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd,
And we should serve him as a grudging master, [ 725 ]
As a penurious niggard of his wealth,
And live like Natures bastards, not her sons,
Who would be quite surcharg'd with her own weight,
And strangl'd with her waste fertility;

[Anonymous No.4105222]

An ability to reflect on your emotions.

Signs of potential poet

- Reflective
- Introverted
- "Head in the clouds"
- Absent minded

[Anonymous No.4105226]

>>4105222
Also,

- Feeling a certain detachment from life
- Feeling more like an observer than a doer

[Anonymous No.4105231]

>>4105214
>Also, some of Milton's best lines are that in wich he gave himself to the pleasure of imagery:

The same could be said about some of the most loved and admired excerpts of Paradise Lost. All students of English must love this piece:

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesolè,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear–to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand–
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On Heaven’s azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea he stood, and called
His legions–Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.

*One more thing: before you call me a monolingual faggot, I warn you that English is not my original language (though I prefer the English literature to the literature of my native country.

[Anonymous No.4105236]

>>4105226
Additional note.

I feel like the poetic mood belongs to adolescense. I feel that poets in general suffer from a kind of "arrested development". Everybody feels like a poet the first time they fall in love and experience "love sickness", and that's because it's the first time you have emotions that really hang in your chest and force you to look inwards. For a poet this kind of looking inward is a habit. Most people when they grow up learn to synthesize their emotions with actions - how to express their emotions through deeds. But poets are too obsessed with the emotions and think that they need to be "immortalized" or "consecrated" in a wok of art.

[Anonymous No.4105238]

>>4105236
>But poets are too obsessed with the emotions and think that they need to be "immortalized" or "consecrated" in a wok of art.

Which aligns with the typical character flaw of artists which is excessive vanity.

[Anonymous No.4105257]

Thirst for adventure. You can't write without life experience, because those who do have it will immediately see through your trite fantasies.

[Anonymous No.4105271]

>>4105257

Tell that to Pope.

[Anonymous No.4105280]

>>4105271
But he's dead.

[Anonymous No.4105298]

I think a mixture of these characteristics:

>>4105222
>>4105226

With these characteristics:

>>4105257

Is what makes a great poet. Many poets (actually the majority of them) were lonely and shy, focused mostly on themselves (Wordsworth, Pope, Leopardi, Dickinson), but although they have produced great works, they never touched the peaks that are Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, for example. They works are generally only lyrical, only concerned with they own being and emotions, with they own world – they are not creators of characters; they have difficulty in imagining other life’s and existences.

Also those poets who are hungry for life in extreme, living adventure after adventure and never are happy not sit down, to have a routine, can never reached that level of wisdom, peace and empathy necessary to produce great works. Rimbaud, Lope de Vega and Byron are examples.

But Shakespeare and Dante, who, it seems, were more quiet and shy, never lock themselves alone in their homes, but faced the world and the people in it. Dante even ventured into politics for many years (certainly a field of human activity full of life and movement) and Shakespeare lived in a big city, working in the theater world, and encountered all kinds of people (in addition he was a father and head of family with only 18 years old). But Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, far for being crazy and living wild lives in the middle of people, all have routines and ordered lives (with some exceptions of major events).

[Anonymous No.4105302]

>>4105298
I don't like your implication that Wordsworth is not a great poet.

[Anonymous No.4105315]

>>4105257
Yeah, I don't think you need to experience the adventure except in your imagination. The guys who sincerely believe that you need to have "experience" in order to be a good writer end up being more like journalists than artists.

Homer didn't need to be a soldier in order to feel the glory of heroes. Virgil didn't need to be a statesman to admire the imperial majesty of Rome. Etc.

I agree that you need to have interactions with people and that certain experiences will serve as good material to spark imagination. I think the reason why people like Shakespeare and Dante benefited so much from having the more "common experience" - a daily routine in public life as opposed to being completely sedentary or being complete involved in adventure - is that it gave them more sympathies with the common man, and so they understood the passions that excite mankind more and were able to reproduce them in their art.
Still though, I have heard that Shakespeare was a fairly private person and Dante must have been what we would call an "introvert" when you read his La Vita Nuova.

[Anonymous No.4105323]

>>4105280

I thought this thread was about ideal qualities for poets, not immortals(, yah dingus).

[Anonymous No.4105329]

>>4105315
That's like saying it's enough to imagine being good at sex in order to be a good lay.

[Anonymous No.4105333]

>>4105329
No, but the guy who has a good erotic imagination and who has had no sex will write better erotica than the guy who has tons of sex but has no imagination. The latter might have been understanding of the mechanics of sex, but that's something that the former can learn by reading or by watching porn. The latter, however, cannot as easily obtain the power of imagination that the former has.

[Anonymous No.4105338]

>>4105257
Classic amateur opinion, ultimately complete bollocks.

[Anonymous No.4105342]

>>4105329

>can't negative capability

Writing isn't doing, dingus. Imagination is a thing.

[Anonymous No.4105414]

>>4105333
>that's something that the former can learn by reading or by watching porn

[Anonymous No.4105538]

>>4103223
Ability to expose jews

[Anonymous No.4105573]

>>4103223

A silver tongue (figuratively, not literally of course)

[Anonymous No.4105603]

>>4105414
It's similar to writing traveling. You can send a random man around the world and he'll come back with nothing to say about it. You can giver a writer or painter a travelogue and he can recreate cities in tantalizing fictitious detail from them-make them almost pornographic, even to those who have walked Tehran one hundred times before.

Travel alone does not substantiate anything, same as sex. But neither hurt anything probably.

[Anonymous No.4105651]

>>4105238

Not so much vanity, as an amplified sense of self-awareness. Vanity implies a willingness to indulge oneself: this amplified sense of self-awareness, rather, compels the artist toward deep consideration, expressed through symbols and abstractions in their medium of choice. Anyway, that's my opinion.

[Anonymous No.4105667]

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

[Anonymous No.4105682]

>>4105667

Go to bed Paul.

[Anonymous No.4105688]

>>4105603
Yes, somebody with artistic aptitudes will probably write better about something that he has not experienced than some random uncultured dude, but I really doubt that he would produce great art. There is a reason that "write of what you know" is one of the most repeated advice.

[Anonymous No.4105860]

>>4105688
>There is a reason that "write of what you know" is one of the most repeated advice.

In post-Hemingway blandworld maybe

[Anonymous No.4105944]

The ability to feel and share his feels in the most vivid way.
"Poet" in Arabic also means "feeler"

[Anonymous No.4106971]

>>4103251

This. Poems with lots of metaphors are the best ones.

[Anonymous No.4107006]

>>4106971

>Poems with lots of metaphors are the best ones.

You've only recently gotten into poetry, haven't you?

[Anonymous No.4107067]

>>4105688
That should be write what you can get away with depending upon your audience.

That maxim is for write workshop authenticity crowds who are look to "share" above all else. You can jargon me, medicine show me a bit on some of the techs if you are writing about religious cults alive in 10thc Persia and they are just a minor point in the plot.

[Anonymous No.4107641]

>>4107006

No, its been more than 10 years. I dont care about the message of a poem: to me the most important thing is the language, and imagery (metaphor beeing the queen of imagery).

Shakespeare is the best of all poets because of his fanatic love and lust for imagery. Of course you need to know how to use imagery and how to build metaphor (much of the modernist metaphors are bizarre and make no sense, and so they are trash).

[Anonymous No.4108225]

>>4103223

Let me fix this thread for you. This should be the pic.

[Anonymous No.4108235]

>>4107641
No. There are many other things that language can do apart from metaphors. If you've been reading poetry for ten years you might consider working on your reading skills.

[Anonymous No.4108289]

>>4108235

Of course I know that there are other important aspects on poetry. I studied everything: versification; sonority; syllabic accentuation; rhymes; irony; affinities and differences between prose and verse,;versification for songs and for solemn and fluids verses(such as blank verse), etc., etc., etc..

But among all the characteristics of poetry, metaphor is for me, the most beautiful, the most interesting, the most wonderful: it is the hearth of poetry, that which truly distinguishes a poem, that which truly crown a poet as a person with more imaginative verbal-power than the average human being. The metaphor (as well as the union between abstract and concrete language - which is usually done through the metaphor) are, in my view, the greatest sources of energy and liveliness for a poem. The language of Shakespeare is always soaked with metaphors and imagery (it is a broth forever bubbling with similes, metaphors, color, forms, shapes, tastes and smells), so much as they, like tree roots in a closed forest, run over each other and interlock themselves, growing one over the other; they are as veins screwing and choking each other. Charles Lamb was right when he wrote this about Shakespeare style:

>Yet, noble as the whole passage is [a passage from Fletcher’s play], it must be confessed that the manner of it, compared with Shakespeare’s finest scenes, is faint and languid. Its motion is circular, not progressive. Each line revolves on itself in a sort of separate orbit. They do not join into one another like a running-hand. Fletcher’s ideas moved slow; his versification, though sweet, is tedious, it stops at every turn; he lays line upon line, making up one after the other, adding image to image so deliberately, that we see their junctures. Shakespeare mingles everything, runs line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors; before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched and clamorous for disclosure.

[Anonymous No.4108292]

>>4108289

But only those who have facility to create metaphors understands the pleasure that it is to felt them howling in the corridors of brain, clamoring to be released in such quantity that there would never be free space in a poem, sonnet, song, play-speech or aria for all of them. Its like this: you think in some word, like “Prison”, and then surges ebbs of images started to form in the brain, and its hard (and even painful) to have to choose some of them in spite of others. That is the difficulty of the truly great poets: it is hard to be concise, to refrain yourself; on the contrary, mediocre poets have difficulty in adquire enough metaphors and images, and so they try to consulate themselves by thinking that the most important thing in a poem is its message, its rhymes, its form, its sonority, its philosophy, etc. Johnson said that in a wonderful way:

>The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished unto brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals.

[Anonymous No.4108293]

>>4108292

But as Aristotle said, this is a natural gift, and cannot be learned.

Other interesting thing is that the metaphor creates things that did not exist before: it does force unions of things that have never been previously united; it obliges all sorts of things and aspects of the natural word to sleep and make love with each other, and this marriage generates births than never before trod the world. If I say, for example:

The cold and anemic cadaver of snow stretched its white carcass
Over the mountains; the pines, the cedars, and the inhabitants of the woods
Hibernated under the albino shroud and spectral blanket of the winter.

I force the human brains to accept new entities that did not exist before: the snow becomes a corpse, a dead body; winter is now a huge albino blanket (remember that albino is a quality of animals, not of a dead thing as a blanket), a ghost that stifles the mountains make them hibernate. And this is just one clumsy and mediocre example of metaphor: it is much more powerful in its ability to create things not previously known to the universe.

[Anonymous No.4108306]

>>4105651
Vanity = "this amplified sense of self-awareness"

[Anonymous No.4108309]

>>4108292
>try to consulate themselves

try to comfort themselves

[Anonymous No.4108320]

>>4103223
Original metaphors seem the hardest for me. I'd love to be able to produce good ones, like a pretty bird in a nest making a good looking egg.

[Anonymous No.4108362]

>>4105222
Okay, I buy it.

>>4105226
See, I disagree with this. I imagine the ideal poet is overly invested in life and emotion if anything

[Anonymous No.4108368]

>>4105603
This is true. But we should probably just send the writer around the world.

[Anonymous No.4108365]

>>4108320

There are several things you can do. I'll give you some advice, the best I can give is: read the book "Shakespeare's Imagery," by Caroline Spurgeon.

It separates and catalogs all the metaphors Shakespeare by subject (well, not all, but almost all of them), and so you will be able to see how one of the greatest masters of metaphor created its imagery. Seeing how he created his, you can go on to have ideas to create your own.

Also, start paying attention to everything, every time. Everything can be material for metaphors (even dishwashing, sweep the house, cooking, dusting powder, knitting, playing football, weeding, yard work, etc. - You'll see it in the book in which I indicated). Pay attention to smells, colors, flavors, sounds and movements.

One more thing: use verbs as a really fast and effective way to create metaphors, especially verbs of human actions. Shakespeare did it all the time:


And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress’s myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.

Do you see? Look at the verbs: stole, dress, pluck. He also milges concrete and abstract language; you see, courtesy is an abstraction, and to stole it is to mingle a concrete action with an abstract idea (Shakespeare also did this all the time).

[Anonymous No.4108395]

Not writing poetry because it's less productive than philosophy and mathematics.

[Anonymous No.4108418]

>>4108395
>Not writing poetry because it's less productive than philosophy and mathematics.

Less productive than mathematics, you mean. Philosophy on this days is just a way for intellectuals who have no artistic talent and also no mathematical thinking skills to think that they are doing science (when in fact the real scientists despise them).

Previously philosophy and science were basically the same thing; nowadays science (especially with the advent of the scientific method) walked in the other direction, much more professional and complex, and the philosophy remains as a niche inhabited by people without talent and full of pretentiousness.

My advice: if you like math, then get to work on mathematics, physics, chemistry. But if you like philosophy and spoke in mathematics just to show off, then kill yourself.

It would be much better if you had the talent to be a poet.

The philosophers of today are failed artists and scientists.

[Anonymous No.4108419]

>>4108395
>caring about productivity

A new contender for 2013's Pleb Comment of the Year hoves into view.

[Anonymous No.4108465]

>>4108395
>muh productivity

I never understood this.

[Anonymous No.4108470]

>>4108395
>philosophy
>productive
heheheheheh

[Anonymous No.4108503]

>>4108395
The thing about mathematics though is this:
If you look at all the people who use math, only a very very very small percentage of them produce anything new. Most everyone just uses other peoples' discoveries to apply it to various things. Nothing is made, no soul is present.

Unless you're like David Hilbert or something, math will never, by definition, be as productive as poetry is (even in the hands of an amateur poet).

[Anonymous No.4108505]

>>4108395
>>4108503
>actually thinking you can quantify productivity
just stop posting guys

[Anonymous No.4108517]

>>4108505
Productivity involves the production of something.

If something is produced, there is SOME level of productivity.
If nothing is produced, then there is no productivity.

I'm not trying to quantify shit.

[Anonymous No.4108520]

>>4108503
>If you look at all the people who use math, only a very very very small percentage of them produce anything new. Most everyone just uses other peoples' discoveries to apply it to various things. Nothing is made, no soul is present.
lloool

[Anonymous No.4108525]

>>4108517
And when there's something produced on each side... ?

[Anonymous No.4108535]

>>4108517
productivity implies producing something of worth. poetry has no worth except to other poets and critics, who're the only ones who read poetry

[Anonymous No.4108555]

>>4103223
Story telling

[Anonymous No.4108788]

>>4108535
So, your opinion is that art is only valuable to artists. You claim it has no worth subjective to your opinion.

Consider all of the people who purchase music, read literature and poetry, and go to art museums. We can assume these people find these things valuable, since they spend time and money to enjoy them.
I think that alone shows quite clearly that your understanding of worth is not shared by most.

[Anonymous No.4109418]

>>4108365
>>4108293
>>4108292
>>4108289

wonderful posts

[Anonymous No.4110292]

>>4108225

Fuck yeah, that's right.

>>4109418

Thank you very much, kind sir.

[Anonymous No.4110683]

Delusion

[Anonymous No.4110712]

>>4108225
Bottom right, I didn't know Sir Ian McKellan was a poet.

[Anonymous No.4110714]

>>4110712

I did not understand your post brah.

[Anonymous No.4111248]

>>4108225
Ian McKellen mackin' on dat Chinese bwai

[Anonymous No.4111257]

>>4105538

So Ezra Pound is the greatest poet?

[Anonymous No.4113235]

>>4108225

Nice work of art.

[Anonymous No.4113374]

>>4110292
>kind sir

[Anonymous No.4113465]

>>4113374

Why should I kill myself? I like to live. ;)

[Anonymous No.4113519]

>>4108225
Why is Shakespeare pictured twice on there?

He's down to the left again near his foot.

[Anonymous No.4113592]

Great thread, please keep posting

[Anonymous No.4114038]

>>4103248
If you believe the answer is anything but this you are deluding yourself. You are not born with whatever it takes to be a poet, just as you aren't specifically born to do anything that's worth the doing.

[Anonymous No.4114050]

>>4105222
>>4105226
This is stereotypical and completely idiotic. I honestly pity you if you believe it.

[Anonymous No.4114086]

I have a knack for meter and am good at articulating myself, but I lack the discipline to become good at either prose or poetry.

I would rather have the discipline and work at the things that come easily to me now.

[Anonymous No.4114202]

>>4113519
You know that's Marlowe, right?

[Anonymous No.4114272]

>>4114038
That's why the question is a "suppose". It's not that you can be born with it, simply serves to get to what you value more in other poets. It works the same way some bizarre hypothetical questions work in psychometric tests.

Regardless, his answer is extremely ingenious since it would allow him to exploit several different talents, unlike other talents
Regard

[Anonymous No.4114285]

>>4105231
>I prefer the English literature to the literature of my native country.
where are you from

[Anonymous No.4114298]

>>4108306
why is that vain? there's a difference between that amplification and the narcissism that many poets experience. they are related but one doesn't require the other. the amplification can lead you to people like Shakespeare who got in the psyche of other and thus built immortal works for the enjoyment of every generation since then

[Anonymous No.4114307]

>>4108418
>The philosophers of today are failed artists and scientists.
You do know Dennett is a philosopher and scientists quite like him, right? You seem to have a very limited view of what constitutes a philosopher

[Anonymous No.4114312]

>>4108517
>If nothing is produced, then there is no productivity.
but you didn't say math produces nothing, you said it produces very little. so you are quantifying. not only that, you're quantifying based on the amount of things discovered (thus you favor poetry over math) not on the benefit and applicable value of said discoveries.

Man, I'm not even a supporter of strictly productivity based views but coe on

[Anonymous No.4114315]

>>4108535
>other poets and critics, who're the only ones who read poetry
that's simply false. I've never attempted to write poetry, only prose. My work isn't even related to literature either. I still love my poets. You clearly have a very limited view. If something has no worth for you it doesn't mean it has worth for nobody. Even by your own standards poetry is productive, it simply doesn't benefit you so you whine and cry in hopes that it's abolished

[Anonymous No.4114318]

>>4108520
he is right. he's simply not accounting for the great benefit tht those isolated discoveries and their daily application give us

[Anonymous No.4114326]

>>4113465
>;)
kill yourself

[Anonymous No.4114404]

>>4114285

Brazil.

[Anonymous No.4114409]

>>4114326

Nah, life is good. I'll stick around for another 70 years. Maybe even win a Nobel Prize. :)

[Anonymous No.4115721]

>>4114326

U mad brah?

[Anonymous No.4116341]

>>4114404

Well, it's not a very fair contest: Brazilian literature is much more recent, and it don’t exactly have had one classical period, as European literatures in general have had during the Renaissance.

Also much of Brazilian Literature was under (and is) the nefarious and destructive effect of modernity that today clings like leprosy almost all the literatures of the world. All these books with "non-linear narrative" and "stream of consciousness" and "multiple narrative voices," and "voices of the marginalized and forgotten by society", and "minimalism", with the "dissolution of the rules and columns of classical fiction" by poems with "free verse and new-forms of imagery that choose the abandonment of logic." And etc.

As a Brazilian I say that the most gifted artist we have in our country today is Chico Buarque, not because of his books, but because of his sons (and especially the lyrics of his songs). The lyrics of Chico Buarque are probably the greatest in the world, and certainly they are far better than the ones of Dylan, that is famous for this aspect of his productivity.

[Anonymous No.4116430]

>>4116341
what is destructive about modernity or is that a nonvalue judgement

[Anonymous No.4116510]

>>4103223
Depth and subtlety of feeling

[Anonymous No.4116514]

>>4105257
>You can't write without life experience

And everything counts as experience. You don;t have to have tumultuous love affairs, be part of the smart set, fight in wars or take loads of drugs. Emily Dickinson wrote great poetry and she hardly left a tiny town in new england throughout her whole life.

The two important things, beside natural aptitude, are time spent writing and time spent reading.