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

Literary Ambition and Aspiration

If a poem does not come up to expectation, all is dark.

That is a weakness that ought to be overcome.

I want to write in many ways and many forms; to write long poems as well as short ones; to write expressing many and various ideas; in the future to write books even — and so to prepare myself for this now by doing shorter works.

But surely you do not expect to do all that all at once? One has to grow in consciousness and ability before these things can be done. Because all that is not yet done, is not a ground for being dissatisfied with the present work done.

I hold before myself the example of Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Kalidasa, Shakespeare — of all the great poets. I am afraid this is all ambition.

Ambition has to be outgrown, if one wants to succeed in sadhana. The will to use the energies for the best, not for ego but as a work for the Divine must replace it.

Something within wants to shake off this bondage to the old habits and old ways of writing, wants to soar higher, bring in newer, deeper, truer and more beautiful things: but I feel bound and full of despair.

There is no harm in such an aspiration, but despair is not the way to it. You have to aspire and grow into these new things — already there is a distinct progress, a new writing of a stronger kind.

A peculiar hopelessness now and then will not let me concentrate; how shall I be able to break into a newer region of inspiration by myself and my own aspiration and concentration?

You can’t do it by hopelessness and the consequent inability to concentrate. It is precisely by aspiration and concentration that it can be done. Nor are you called upon to do it “by yourself”.

I don’t want to write poetry in the same forms and metres. But I cannot help myself; there seems to be a canal cut and things come in that way, that form, and no other.

One can try new forms and metres and they will come, but it is to be observed that the greatest poets have written in a few forms and metres — e.g. Shakespeare, dramatic blank verse, sonnet, short lyric. In narrative he was a failure. Milton, blank verse, narrative, sonnet, long meditative lyric, ode. His drama form is not dramatic. Kalidas, narrative epic, drama, one elegiac poem, one poem of nature description — not an inexhaustible variation of metres. Valmiki, Vyasa epic only — anuṣṭubh and triṣṭubh metres. Dante, terza rima metre — little variation of kind in his poetic writing.

I am rejecting the impulse to do other literary work — stories, novels etc. — simply for the sake of producing maturer work in poetry, though novel-writing would have been easier.

I do not know that there is any reason why you should not write other things. You have now a great mastery of poetry in its constituent parts of language, rhythm, building — it is only the variation that is needed. Perhaps by doing other work that variation might be assisted.

Lastly, I want to have your guidance, as when you told Nirod what were his drawbacks.

In your case I do not find any drawbacks of importance — except the one fact that you are bound within one channel or stream of poetry with always the same images and ideas as the base of your work. The construction in that base varies and is always fine. But the base and the kind are always the same.

Neither Arjava nor Amal are guided by anybody except you. Why should not that be the right thing for me?

Arjava and Amal write in English and I can guide or suggest things to them in detail as well as in general. I can’t do that with Bengali poetry; I can only pass judgment on points put before me.

Consultation with Nolini might be useful — he has a different mind from Nirod’s and can see things from another angle. Nirod’s help is, I think, indispensable. As for Nishikanta, I do not think it advisable — he has a strong individuality of his own as a poet and at the same time a great assimilative power. With the first he would make suggestions which would be good poetry but not kin to your individuality; with the other he would absorb your poetry and produce Nishikantisations of that — I don’t think you would like such drawings upon you.

20 March 1937