John Ciardi's "An Emeritus Addresses the School"

The Daily Poem

About the creative process itself, John Ciardi argued in the Writer that “it isn’t easy to make a poem,” adding, “It is better than easy: it is joyously, consumingly difficult. As it is difficult, too, though without joy, to face one’s failures.” Noting that the creation of successful verse requires definite skill, he wrote: “I insist that a poet needs at least as much training as does a concert pianist. More, I think, but that is already too much for the ignorantly excited.” Believing that “the minimum requirement for a good poem is a miracle,” he explained: “The poem must somehow turn out better than anyone—the poet included—had any right to expect. No matter how small the miracle, the hope of it is my one reason for writing.” He also felt the poem’s strength will lead the writer unerringly: “The poet cannot know where he is going: he must take his direction from the poem itself.”

-via Poetry Foundation

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