...much of poetry in the making is the fiddle with a few items. You lay a word against another and wait. You try another word. And another. Yet another. You wait. You begin again. Listening. Looking. For the elusive inevitable thing which has to arrive before it is recognised. And, like Odysseus, may not be recognised at first. Craig Raine
About This Quote

The fiddle with a few items is a metaphor that describes the writer’s process. The writer works on several different ideas at once. Once one idea is ready to go, it is moved to the front of the line to be worked on. Then, when another idea needs to be written down, it is moved back to the middle of the line, where it waits for its turn.

This process continues until one of the ideas becomes so popular that it commands all of the writer’s attention. The writer then tries another idea and begins working on it immediately. This process continues until one of the ideas becomes so popular that it commands all of the writer’s attention.

The writer then tries another idea and begins working on it immediately.

Source: Heartbreak

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More Quotes By Craig Raine
  1. ...much of poetry in the making is the fiddle with a few items. You lay a word against another and wait. You try another word. And another. Yet another. You wait. You begin again. Listening. Looking. For the elusive inevitable thing which has to arrive...
  2. The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple – to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.
  3. No one is exempt and everyone's pain has a different smell. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairsand read about themselves–in colour, with their eyelids shut.
  4. In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting.
  5. Begin with the soft smelted upturned heart-shaped mouth made for smiling a smile kept for kindness, tenderness, incapable of malice. Am I going too fast for you? The almond eyes see out through their sleepy epicanthic fold. Trusting and calm, if a flicker from slowness,...
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