The prolific and beloved poet May Sarton was an emotive, careful writer who seemingly never published a line that had not been weighed, judged, fully understood, and buffed to a high sheen.

Given her attention to both raw inspiration and careful editing, she had a lot to say about the art of poetry that can apply to almost any kind of writing.

In Writings on Writing, she references Valery and what he said about the inspiration or “the intense feeling” that generates a piece of work. She throws a little cold water on the idea of some great rush of emotion driving the creation of art:

A true poem does not begin with a feeling, however compelling, and of course we feel a great many things that never become poems.

Instead, she argues, the writing comes from that collision of a feeling with something else:

A poem emerges when a tension that has been something experienced, felt, seen, suddenly releases a kind of anxious stirring about of words and images … the energy that was absorbed in experience itself, now becomes an energy of an entirely different kind, and all that matters is to solve the sort of puzzle, the sort of maze in which certain phrases, and a certain rhythm lie around like counters in a game of Scrabble.

Without emotional inspiration, there would be little writing, or at least not much worthwhile writing. But that inspiration needs channeling and puzzling out before it can be fully formed and live on the page.