I must say that none of this - fascinating though it sometimes is - has anything at all to do with what it seems to me that I do when I write a poem, or make a poem. One thing I don't do is THINK it. The poems have nothing to do with thinking at all. They are constructs. What they are constructed out of I couldn't say. I was watching a cricket match yesterday and the fairly unreflective sportsmen were saying that once you start THINKING about what you are doing then you do it wrong. I think so too and try to think as little as possible. As a poet, I mean. My thinking is concerned with getting through life, catching trains, dodging taxes and so forth.
Yes really. Robert Graves says he thinks in broken images, but that doesn't strike me as what most people call thinking at all. Also, thinking sounds active. most of what I do as a poet isn't active at all. It happens to me.
How can I know what I think until I see what I say? I didn't say that. I read it somewhere, but it's true, isn't it
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