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

Rapture and Application

Would you advise me to cease trying to write poetry for some time? The one or two recent failures (what you call “a good poem” falls for me more or less in the same category) perhaps shows that I am pumping when the well is dry? The poetry I really want to write — miraculous and perfect — seems so impossible at present. I wonder and wonder whether I shall ever be able to offer you the rapture and the glory I dream of.

I don’t see why you object to writing good poems or why you call them failures. The rapture and the glory are all right, but how are you to arrive at them if you don’t write?

6 October 1934