Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Savitri

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [28]

But aren’t there two tendencies in poetry — one to emphasise the shades, another to blend and blur them owing to technical exigencies? What poet would not use “gleam”, “glow” and “sheen” indifferently for the sake of rhyme, rhythm or metre?

That might be all right for mental poetry — it won’t do for what I am trying to create — in that one word won’t do for the other. Even in mental poetry I consider it an inferior method. “Gleam” and “glow” are two quite different things and the poet who uses them indifferently has constantly got his eye upon words rather than upon the object.

23 May 1937