tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2283849717487961708.post372345143336470317..comments2008-01-25T03:03:13.457-08:00GOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15887517793752604788noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2283849717487961708.post-8882776631370441252008-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:002008-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:00It was Michelangelo who talked (often) about "freeing the sculpture in the block of marble", a reference, surely, to the need to work with the material and not try to force it into shapes that its nature will not allow. We have all seen sculptures in one material force to look as though they were cast or carved in another. They look false, even to the untrained eye. There are forms appropriate to each material - you could say that each has its own language - and you could apply that to word-smithing: it is one of the problems of translating, for example. Each language has its own forms.IDave Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2283849717487961708.post-59860745145735430022008-01-13T05:26:00.000-08:002008-01-13T05:26:00.000-08:00I see your point about looking for the poetry within blocks of text. I've never really thought that way but I guess it's what I do only in a more abstract sense. I've struggled in the past to try and explain what I mean by 'thinking poetry' as opposed to just thinking. I suppose it's like having a particular filter applied to my thoughts so that everything I see and hear is assessed as potential poetry. A simple example would be, as I'm crossing a street, a voice in my head would convert that into words, like an opening line: "As he crossed the street…" which I then play with trying to see what could be added to that to make it more poetic. There is poetry in everything if you look hard enough. I'm not sure if it's a process of perception or extraction or a bit of both.<BR/><BR/>There are different kinds of sculpture of course and I imagine very few sculptures get to work with blocks of marble these days. But most of them will have taken a lump of clay and done things with it. The thing about clay is that you can take away, shape it and add to it; with marble there is nothing but removal. Maybe that's why I've always struggled with it as an analogy for writing.Jim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.com