runover words

He had a funny habit of placing a line break so that the words starting the next line would be shown to be superfluous.

as an artist

As an artist, you should not wish to create what you don’t feel you have to create.

People who read only the Classics are sure to remain up-to-date.

There is a poet in every competent person; this comes out when they write, read, speak or listen.

Art originated in a longing for the superfluous.

The spirit of a language is revealed most clearly through its untranslatable words.

Philosophers arrive at conclusions, poets must allow theirs to develop.

The old saw “It’s always hard to begin” only applies to skills. In art nothing is harder than to end, which means at the same time to perfect.

—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aphorisms (Ariadne Press, 1994), translated by David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder.

afterimages

A poem bears information whether as a meaning-making entity or as pure experience. When we revise a poem we are often tempted to cut things (eliminate information) after our first reading of the poem which seem to be extraneous or superfluous in retrospect. And yet we can never wipe the mind’s slate clean and experience the poem the way we did in our first reading of it. Certain things may be cut from the poem which will always inform our reading of that poem. These elements remain in the mind even after being deleted from the text. But how will the next ‘first-time reader’ of the poem experience it without these elements? That is the nagging question faced during revision.