The Value of Journaling to a Writer

"Keeping a Diary all my life helped me to discover some basic elements 

essential to the vitality of writing." -  Anais Nin

Opening Up~

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
 ~ Anais Nin

It seems to me that Nin's words above,  like so many of her bits of wisdom are in fact powerful maxiums we can all lean on in life. Everyone... but they seem so relevent to the writer's life - a life that often challenges one to risk opening the blossoms that reveal

Do you recall a time when your writing risked blossoming?

The Making of a Great Poem

Over the years I've come across a few people... some contemporaries, others from the past that own a collection of thoughts, of sayings that are so profound that I find myself amazingly nodding my head yes, yes! to the vast majority of their collected quotations. One such person is Anais Nin. I could do a lengthy post of such profound statements from her, and I have quoted her here several times over the years-  but today I have chosen one thing that she said that I believe embodies what I think should answer the question, What should a really great poem do?"

 

Nin says, "It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it." 

If in the end, a poem can achieve this... can take the familiar and cause us to look at it and see something different, or in a different light... that is art... that is poetry!


Who Speaks To You! What person/persons has/have many profound quotations that speak to your core thoughts and belief systems?