Stephen Spender - "Making of a Poem"

Summary of Stephen Spender “The Making of a Poem”

Stephen Spender writes poetry has certain traits consisting of concentration, memory and faith.  In addition, poets need “qualifications of ear, vision, imagination, “ the ability to think in images and the mastery of language (113).  He writes that the poet has to adapt himself to the demands of his vocation and the “peculiarities of poets and the condition of [their] inspiration” (113).  He is critical of people in that they are only aware of poetry as the final product.  Items like meter and rhyme, thinking in images and free associates are elements he believes to be absent from the amateurs (114). 

Spender distinguishes between concentration for the poet against concentration for the average working man.  With poetry, the poet needs to focus in a way to increase their awareness of implications and possible developments (114).  He also describes concentration as a form of lucid thought through habits and distractions.  He writes that the mind needs to be slightly distracted to focus creatively (115).  He views the act as a “compulsion” that strains the mind to “higher heights” (115).  

Spender notes two main forms of concentration.  There is the immediate that is an outpouring of ideas and words, that generally do not need revisions.  There is also the plodding that is work and usually has many revisions (115).    Maintaining a purpose of integrity, or pursuing the vision to the end is more powerful than speed or intelligence (115).   He also notes that everything in poetry is work except for the inspiration (119).  Inspiration is the initial and final goal and, “In between this start and this winning post there is the hard race, the sweat and toil” (119). 

Memory is the ability to re-live sense experiences (Spender, 121).  Spender writes that memory is important to all the arts and once clearly stated, the memory transforms into experience (121).  A particularly interesting notion is Spender’s comment that imagination is part of memory and “There is nothing we imagine which we do not already know” (122).  The idea is furthered with “And our ability to imagine is our ability to remember what we have already once experienced and to apply it to some different situation” (122).  In essence, Spender is suggesting that the artist can take a memory and transform it into an experience.  Once articulated, linguistically, musically, or visually, the memory becomes an experience.  The notion is furthered that the imagination can develop a memory and apply it another scene that will also have the effect of creating an experience.

Spender believes that faith in one’s work is the sustenance of the poet (123).  He cites that poets have a truth about their work, as their work is a reflection of their inner selves, their freest perceptions, and their deepest feelings (123).

Spender discusses inspiration and song.  Inspiration is when ideas or a line of thinking are given to the poet (124).  Song is a bit more difficult to understand.  However, Spender frames the notion that song is the final music the poem will assume, though “unthought” at the time (125). 

Spender does not enjoy writing as it is painful. He perceives words as a difficult medium, words can come out dully, and the act of writing forces one to face one’s own personality (125).  He writes that one can act as a man in normal phases of the day.  However, when dealing with poetry, “one is wrestling with a god” (125).  He has a tendency to want to publish new works as they are fresh and appear new.  However, he writes that he “relegates them to the past of wasted efforts” (125).

Spender’s final thoughts reflect an idea that every writer is writing for someone specific (125).  He also notes that poets tend to be sensitive to criticism because they themselves are sensitive and so is the nature of their work (125).

Spender, Stephen. “The Making of a Poem.” The Creative Process: A Symposium. Ed. Brewster Ghislen.  Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985. 113-126. Print.

May - Courage to Create and Valery "The Course in Poetics" Response

Week Nine Response

            This weeks reading encompassed notions of creativity relative to limitations, boundaries, form and chaos.   The material also covered the elements that fuel and motivate the creative response.  Rollo May suggests that the creative act is the process of making order out of disorder within the structure of limits and boundaries.  Valery covered a lot of thoughtful insights that run parallel with many of the previous authors.  However, he deconstructed the questioning mind in such a way that resonated deeply with my artistic beliefs.  May and Valery affirm my beliefs that creativity is a recurring process that gives meaning to our world, and that mystery is the driver.  More specifically, we can use May’s and Valery’s writing to illustrate that creativity is activated by limits, that it creates meaning for our experiences, and that questions and the unknown are the primary motivators of the creative spark.

            May writes about the limits imposed on us by life.  More specifically, he identifies our death, our intelligence, and the circumstances of our lives as limits (113).  He writes, “Conflict presupposes limits, and the struggle with limits is actually the source of creative productions” (114).   Valery might appreciate this notion illustrated in economic terms.  That is, economics is the distribution of limited resources against unlimited wants and desires.   Like Valery, I use an economic term due to its simplicity and understandability.  People simply want more than they can have, and the limitation of resources forces them to make decisions.  The decisions forces cognitive thought and creative aspects engage to form meaning within the limits of our understanding.    

            The notion of limits is furthered through the discussion of form.  May writes, “Form provides the essential boundaries and structure for the creative act” (117).    He furthers it with, “This line limits the content.  It says what space is within the picture and what is outside-it is a pure limiting to that particular form” (117).    My chosen field is photography.  My form is the frame.  Whatever I wish to convey, I must take a three-dimensional world and translate it to a two-dimensional plane that fits within the boundary of the frame.  The frame is the main limiting factor.  However, creativity gives me options that work within the frame. I can imply depth and space through leading lines.  Partial objects are unfinished gestalts that are completed by the viewer.  I can imply time through long exposures or determine the sharpness of a background with the aperture.  I can lower angles and perspectives to give the feel of a child’s view.   Boundaries limit what can physically be in the image, and creativity expands the tools and ideas of what can be conveyed.

            May writes to the formation of meaning through creativity and imagination.  He writes, “They [people] are struggling with their world – to make sense out of nonsense, meaning out of chaos, coherence out of conflict” (125).   May writes that people do this through imagination and by constructing new forms and relationships with their world (125).   May summarizes that passion for form is a way of making meaning in life, and that imagination is the key function that participates in the formation of reality (133).  Finally, he writes, “Creativity is thus involved in our every experience as we try to make meaning in our self-world relationship” (133).   May believes that an incomplete gestalt forms whenever we encounter something we do not understand (131).  Our minds, however, automatically complete the gestalt through the use of imagination and creativity.   May emphasizes that creativity is used to form meaning in our everyday world with everyday encounters.  This suggests creativity is used for all types of encounters and repeatedly throughout the day.  It suggests our minds are not completing one gestalt, but they are continually forming and reforming gestalts to better understand our relationship with the world.  

            Valery’s writing speaks to the questioning mind.  May might consider that Valery is speaking to the mind that is intentionally creating unfinished gestalts in the search for understanding.  Valery writes, “When the mind is in question, everything is in question” (105).  Further, he states that when the mind is in question, things are in disorder, and disorder is the mind’s fertility (105).   He writes, “… fertility depends on the unexpected rather than expected, depends rather on what we do not know … [rather] than what we know” (105).   Valery articulates two thoughts that are personal to me.  It is my position that “I do not know” is the single most powerful statement we can say to ourselves.  It enables us to be imperfect and to question our environment.  Another personal deep believe is that mystery and secrets are what draws the viewer into imagery.  Mystery is a thing not revealed.  A secret is a thing revealed, but not shared.   Valery and May summarize that questioning one’s environment opens the view to the unknown.  By our very nature, the unknown forms incomplete gestalts that engage the imagination (the search) and creativity, the meaning formed within our limits.  Valery wrote extensively to the creative process.  However, the described notions run deep with me and Valery gave me better words to understand it.  

            May’s book has proved to be most excellent.  Valery’s work was informationally dense and the ending statements are worth their weight in gold.  Both authors affirm and expanded my notions of creativity.  Limits create boundaries, both physical and psychological, that form boundaries.  Boundaries force the use of imagination, and creativity provides interpretation and meaning.  Questioning our environment intentionally forms incomplete gestalts that prompt the imagination.   It would seem that creative minds are drawn to the unknown, or mystery, and that a powerful way to engage creativity is to simply ask a question.     

Works Cited

 May, Rollo. The Courage to Create. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1975. 11-54. Print.

Valery, Paul. “The Course in Poetics: First Lesson.” The Creative Process: A Symposium. Ed. Brewster Ghislen. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985. 92-105. Print.

Review - Yeats - "Three Pieces on the Creative Process"

Summary of William Butler Yeats “Three Pieces on the Creative Process”

“Three pieces on the Creative Process” is William Butler Yeats descriptions that speak to inspiration and creative thought.  Yeats write that good art inspires us physically (106).  It can take us to some other place and time where we are beyond what we are.  Great art encourages us to “touch and taste and hear and see the world” while taking us away from its mechanics (107).  He also notes that art transcends social constructs by having a morality that is personal (107).

Yeats writes that he found himself uninspired and he questioned if he had grown to old for poetry or if his subconscious had shut down.  Yeats writes his journey was considerable mostly because he had asked a friend for an opinion (107).  Yeats writes the friend would not speak to it and appeared to be cynical as the great works had been compromised and corrupted (107-108).   He finally read Yeats’s work and called it “putrid” (108).   Yeats’s found himself taking his poetry to other sources and discovered he was shopping for affirmations that met his own desire (108).

The third part of Yeats’s essay is the “Long-Legged Fly” (109).  The poem speaks to the great figures of time including Ceaser, Helen of Troy, and Michael Angelo (109).  All three are described during a contemplative phase of their life or work (109).  All of them are metaphorically related to a “long-legged fly upon the stream” and their “mind moves upon silence” (109).  

Works Cited

Yeats, William Butler. “Three Pieces on the Creative Process.” The Creative Process: A Symposium. Ed. Brewster Ghislen. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985. 106-109. Print.

Review - Prince - "Subconscious Intelligence Underlying Dreams"

 Summary of Morton Prince “Subconscious Intelligence Underlying Dreams”

“Subconscious Intelligence Underlying Dreams” is Morton Prince’s theories pertaining to dreams and the symbolization of subconscious thought into conscious ideas.   Prince begins the essay by summarizing Sigmund Freud’s theory of the two processes in dreams; “one is the conscious dream, the other is a subconscious process which is the actuated residuum of a previous experience and determines the dream” (212).   Morton furthers Freud’s notions by exploring how subconscious ideas are transferred to conscious dream thought (212).   He surmises that elements of subconscious thought are symbols that emerge as “secondary images” (213).  These images are then translated into ideas the dreamer can articulate.  Prince is suggesting that dreamers receive a primary message from the subconscious in the form visual imagery.  Additional dream images, or secondary images, develop further narrative through the symbolic language of the subconscious.      

Prince recounts the experience of a subject who awoke to strong emotive thoughts (213).  The subject recorded her vision, and found later that the words and language she used were different from what she had remembered writing (214).   Prince notes the subject meant to record what she saw, but wrote what she felt from the dream (214).  He also notes the subject was unable to account for the composition (214). Prince writes that well composed and emotive writing are commonalities with people having visionary experiences from dreams (215).

Prince states that the same processes that form dreams are the same processes that express the ideas as verbal symbolism (215).  He refers to the process that produces both visual and verbal symbolism as coconscious (215).  He writes that he was able to trace the dreamer’s thoughts to antecedent experiences that become the causal factors for dream-vision, waking-vision, and poetical expression (215). 

Prince restates that dream vision, waking vision and poetical expressions are subconscious processes that act in the same manner (216).  He also writes, “As this process showed itself capable of poetical composition, constructive imagination, volition, memory, and affectivity it was a sub-conscious intelligence” (216).  A summary of Prince’s essay demonstrates the act of people writing to emotion, caused by dreams, rather than to conscious language.  The nature of the writing is more reflective of the sub-conscious rather than the conscious.  Further, Prince argues that the subconscious has an intelligence all its own, and it is based in symbolic imagery.  The thrust of Prince’s essay explains one process that interprets and produces both verbal and visual symbolic imagery.  These processes allow the subconscious intelligence to effectively speak to conscious dream thought.

Works Cited

Prince, Morton. “Subconscious Intelligence Underlying Dreams.” The Creative Process: A Symposium. Ed. Brewster Ghislen. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985. 212-216. Print.