Poetry and inspiration

Abstract

Before I discuss tile nature of poetry and the motive force behind it which we call 'inspiration', I beg you to enter with me the Poet's workshop where we can have a good look at his tools, which, when employed by him effectively in the odd moments of inspiration, create beauty of sound and feeling out of a fluid combination of verbal measures. The most important material on which the poet employs his sharpened tools is language, his own language that provides thousands of single words and word-combinations out of which he builds a significant poem for those that wish to escape from the drabness of daily life or enjoy vicariously thoughts and ideas that flashed through his mind but which they could not, and perhaps would not, express in appropriate language.