"The major Voice"

Kenyon, Troupe, Brooks, Cane, Kiš

Jane Kenyon:

Quincy Troupe:

Gwendolyn Brooks:

---

The Sharpener is a reader-supported newsletter. If you get value from these newsletters and want to support my work I encourage you to take out a paid subscription.

---

Tina Cane:

Danilo Kiš:

Technical problems interest me the most—technique is at least half of writing. Beginners think that to have experiences is enough. Apart from certain firsthand accounts, to be a writer—except for the first book, which is technically quite easy—one must always be aware of technique. How does one avoid repeating oneself? And there’s the problem of originality, which involves knowing the great literary works of the past and adding the drop of one’s own authenticity. It’s odd. I've never heard an engineer, for example, say, “I never studied the history of engineering because I want my structures to be original,” but I often hear writers say, “You know, I never read because I want to maintain my originality.” If you know about others’ techniques, you can avoid “nonoriginality” by avoiding their techniques. If you don’t know much about the great books of the past, you revert to the beginning stages of literature.

---

About Sean Singer 

Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

---

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes craft pieces on craft, writing problems, information about professional literacy and labor issues for writers, and detailed citations and analyses of the poems I’m reading.