Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Poetry

Periods of Incubation [2]

My ballad seems to have fallen between two stools — it’s neither true ballad nor pure poem. Has it no saving grace at all? What do you advise me to do with it? Limbo?

As to the sentence on your poem, I told you I could not pronounce even a definitive verdict. There was a recommendation by Horace or some other impossibly wise critic that when you have written a poem the safest rule is to put it in your desk, leave it there for ten years and then only take it out and read and see whether it is worth anything. Perhaps with a mitigation of the segregation period, the rule could be applied here.

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