Inducing Muses: Notes Toward the Practice of Inspiration

Published according to Act of Parliament, Sept^r. 1, 1773 by Arch^d. Bell, Bookfeller N^o. 8 near the Saraceus Head Aldgate.

In the romantic version, we credit inspiration to forces beyond our control. Yet some poets seem able to place themselves in the way of that lightning more consistently than others. This ability to be in the right mental space at the right time, some claim, is due to a heightened awareness reached somewhere between silent meditation and the frenzy of an uninhibited stream of consciousness. Given how intuitive this process is, how does anyone make inspiration a more programmatic function of the revision process? How do we raise our average, so to speak? Throughout the 2010 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop we looked for ways to court inspiration for use in revising poems.

We often presume the critical stage in writing is in producing the first draft. As a result, we hand responsibility for revision over to the autopilot we more generally call "style." Finding inspiration for new poems is often not the challenge for seasoned poets like those participating in the workshop, however. Instead, our concern is with developing first drafts beyond the familiar territory of style, and how we understand the poem as part of an oeuvre. In many cases, we consider the poem under discussion a starting point for a more holistic critique of the poet's process. The object is not necessarily to alter that process. Nor are we concerned with changing a participant's aesthetic or style. We seek greater possibilities for the poet's entire body of work. We do this by asking the difficult, sometimes uncomfortable questions, and by zeroing in on the places where the poems seem to have something to hide.

Let's say inspiration is a by-product of the revelation of truth (in the Keatsian sense). We layer meaning in poems and thereby produce text that we say can't be summarized. It is sometimes the case, however, that we may sacrifice rigor in thinking we are giving deference to this irreducible quality, because these layers may obscure truths the poet needs to have revealed and articulated (if only to herself) if the poem is to be fully realized. It is sometimes the case that we do a disservice to the poem in leaving its strengths unexamined, thinking we are honoring the poem's mysteries. Each truth unmasked, each "breakthrough," rather than diminishing the poem's mystery or complexity, opens new frontiers for the poem, giving it greater depth and range. Each truth revealed releases the pollen of inspiration. We need not fear that this awareness will render the poem plain or artless. Instead, such awareness forces the poet's imagination to adopt all the more inventive means of protecting the subconscious. In this practice the poet is unable to rely on the old habits of thought with which she has grown confident in rendering her visions and ideas and must make a way from no way, opening herself to inspiration. It requires self-awareness to identify these instances of masking, however.

In order to conduct such an interrogation, such an unmasking, we reject the crisis model of workshop in which participants focus on redeeming the poem's weaknesses and instead seek to shed light on the mechanics of our strengths. Because our strengths can be the very means by which we have become adept at obscuring truths, we identify the idiosyncrasies and tics that distinguish a poet's style and technique. The theory is that we resort to our most habituated processes the further we find ourselves in unfamiliar emotional and intellectual territory. The lyrical flourish, the enlivening non-sequitur or surprising image, the apostrophe, the exclamation, or the discursive list—while these may delight the reader, they may serve the poet as a grounding ritual in a moment of discomfort. Again, the point is not to eliminate these "poker tells," if you will, but to investigate whether or not we might gain some better insight into the demands...