Sunday, May 15, 2011

Note to self

…gradually you come under the right influences, picking and choosing, and being selective, and then maybe your voice is the combination of 6 or 8 other voices that you have managed to blend in such a way that nobody can recognize your sources. You can learn intimacy from Whitman, you can learn the dash from Emily Dickinson…you can pick a little bit from every writer and you combine them. This allows you to be authentic. That’s one of the paradoxes of the writing life: that the way to originality is through imitation.
 
— Billy Collins, at the White House’s Poetry Workshop
Watch the broadcast Heidi!!!

1 comment:

Kel said...

interesting
thought provoking
shall have to chew on this