21. Personal journey

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I feel that the creation of poetry is not unlike the upsurging of words in a Quaker meeting. First, heart and mind must be prepared - and the emotional and mental preparation for art is something which few non-artists realise. Then there is the waiting, perhaps for months, because poetry cannot be forced: it is an act of imagination, not of will ... and then at last comes the moment of certainty, accompanied usually by some physical action, and the words begin to flow.

Clive Sansom, 1965

Next: 21.41