Dylan Thomas’ answer to the question, “Do you wait for a spontaneous impulse before writing a poem?” was “No. The writing of a poem is, to me, the physical and mental task of constructing a formally watertight compartment of words,” which sounds a lot different from seeking the muse of madness. Thomas was more in line with Charles Baudelaire, who defined “Inspiration” as, “Working everyday….”
Rilke’s remarks, originally made about Cezanne, “The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity.”
