Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1859

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

February 23, 1937

The difficulty I am faced with in my poetry is that some poems suddenly turn out to be very good, others fall below the mark.

But that is quite usual in the work of all poets.

Everything depends on the Inspiration. But then I can’t change any line or word since I don’t understand what I am writing.

From your explanations you seem to understand all right. The question is about the inspiration itself. It is sometimes more successful, sometimes less – for various reasons. What one has to see is whether what has come through is quite satisfactory in language, image, harmonious building, poetic force. If not, one can call a farther inspiration to emend what is deficient. At first one allows the inspiration to come through without interference, to establish the habit of free flow. But that does not mean one must not afterwards alter or improve – only it should be done not by the mind but by a fresh and better inspiration. If in the course of writing itself, a correcting inspiration comes, that can be accepted – otherwise one does the perfecting afterwards.

You advised me to demand from the source what I want. But I don’t know what precisely I want. All I can say is that the writing should have greater beauty, depth, etc.

That is rather too vague.

... I fondly cherish a hope that one day we shall be able to write like Harin.

Better, I hope.

Perhaps we may not have his fluency.

So much fluency is not necessary. He had perhaps too much.

Nowdays I am having more difficulty in writing. The “abundance” of inspiration seems to have vanished. In one hour I write just one sonnet... I find that plenty of old images and expressions try to come in, which I have to reject mercilessly.

It is probably because of your seeking for something better which makes the mind hesitate – as also the bar put upon the constant repetition of old images. But that is only a transitional difficulty. Still perhaps you are thinking too much while writing?

I concentrate or meditate for a while before writing; at times I go within and then write. But the difficulty is no less. I have to pause after every expression.

Pause to do what? Think? You have to cultivate the power of feeling instinctively the value of what you write – either while writing or immediately you go over it when it is completed.