Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Poetry

Help to Young Poets [1]

Yes, of course, I have been helping Jyotirmayi. Always when somebody really wants to develop the literary power, I put some force to help him or her. If there is faculty and application, however latent the faculty, it always grows under the pressure and can even be turned in this or that direction. Naturally, some are more favourable ādhāras than others and grow more decisively and quickly. Others drop off, not having the necessary power of application. But on the whole it is easy enough to make this faculty grow, for there is cooperation on the part of the recipient and only the tamas of the apravṛtti and aprakāśa in the human instrument to overcome which are not such serious obstacles in the things of the mind as a vital resistance or non-cooperation of the will or idea which confronts one when there is a pressure for change or progress in other directions.

10 June 1935