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Thomas

“You should write like Pindar”

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I was in a taxi once coming home from the airport when I suddenly thought: “you should write like Pindar.” This was an odd thought to have, as I had not read much Pindar, odder still, because I was not then writing anything at all. In fact, I had quit…

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A Sonnet about Ramana Maharshi

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As mentioned in the book’s introduction, I used the highly compressed sonnet form to work out matters of style before moving to blank verse. The sonnet, which I find beautiful in all its manifestations, is a fourteen-line form using a fixed set of rhymes that have changed somewhat over time….

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Mysticism and Poetry

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Etymologically, mysticism refers to secret knowledge into which one must be initiated. Part of the mind knows that we are forever one with our source, and that part of the mind must initiate the remainder, which believes that we are entities separate both from our source and from each other….

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Imitation as Poetic Technique

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Mimesis, or imitation, is a critical method for creating word music. Imagine you are setting up an easel to paint what you see before you, but with words. I take photographs of things, not very interesting as photographs in themselves, but to capture details that I may write about later….

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Verse is Music

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Verse is a form of music. Words are selected as much for sound as for meaning. It is rhythmic, and the sounds of its flowing words produce varied cadences and harmonies. It evokes feelings the way music moves us, even if silently performed in the mind. It transmits mood directly,…

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