The inmost spirit of poetry, in other words, is at bottom, in every recorded case, the voice of pain – and the physical body, so to speak, of poetry, is the treatment by which the poet tries to reconcile that pain with the world.
Ted HughesRead
...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engage deeply with your subject to inspire authentic writing.
Ted Hughes encourages writers to immerse themselves in their subjects fully, experiencing them with all senses rather than overthinking the writing process. He suggests that true inspiration comes from genuine engagement, allowing the words to flow naturally and effortlessly when one connects with the essence of the topic.
Themes
WritingCreativityImmersionExpressionAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to emphasize the importance of sensory engagement in creative writing.
More from Ted Hughes
All quotes →Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give.
Ted HughesRead
Haven’t you heard of the music of the spheres?” asked the dragon. “It’s the music that space makes to itself. All the spirits inside all the stars are singing. I’m a star spirit. I sing too. The music of the spheres is what makes space so peaceful.
Ted HughesRead
You solve it as you get older, when you reach the point where you've tasted so much that you can somehow sacrifice certain things more easily, and you have a more tolerant view of things like possessiveness (your own) and a broader acceptance of the pains and the losses.
Ted HughesRead
And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze_x000D_ _x000D_ About a star of deathless and painless peace_x000D_ _x000D_ But no astronomer can find where it is.
Ted HughesRead
The real mystery is this strange need. Why can't we just hide it and shut up? Why do we have to blab? Why do human beings need to confess?
Ted HughesRead
Similar quotes
I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when I write. I'm not a fantasist. I bounce up and down on the diving board, and I go into the water of fiction. But I've got to begin in life so I can pump life into it throughout.
Philip RothRead
If you are going to write, say, fantasy - stop reading fantasy. You've already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you're going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.
Terry PratchettRead
All dress is fancy dress, is it not, except our natural skins?
George Bernard ShawRead
Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.
Martin LutherRead
Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
Oliver GoldsmithRead
Writing has certainly helped me explore about 20,000 versions of my authentic self. I suppose that's what most writers discover if they write long enough: there are a lot of selves roaming around in there.
Gillian FlynnRead