The Creative Process is an Oedipal triangle.
Some literary critics, like Harold Bloom, say that the creative impulse is the wish of outshining your influences. Its very Oedipal: the artist is the child, the influence is the father, and Art is the mother. Yes: you want to kill your father and possess your mother. It would be more appealing if it wasnt such a male-oriented scheme.
Regarding poetry, that Oedipal triangle is exactly the way I feel. I often write because somebody got there first and said it better than I could. I used to despise T.S. Eliots The Wasteland because in each line I read I want to be Dante, and I cant. My own personal list of Dantes is a long one, but we could start with e. e.cummings. I have posted this poem before, but it won't hurt you to read it again, and besides now it comes with a Spanish translation.
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
algún lugar por el que nunca he viajado, felizmente más allá
de toda experiencia, tus ojos tienen su silencio:
en el más débil gesto tuyo hay cosas que me engloban,
o que no puedo tocar porque están demasiado cerca
tu menor mirada fácilmente me descerrará
aun si me he cerrado a mí mismo como a dedos,
tú me abres siempre pétalo a pétalo como la Primavera abre
(tocando hábilmente, misteriosamente) su primera rosa
o si es tu deseo cerrarme, yo y
mi vida nos cerraremos espléndidamente, de repente,
como cuando el corazón de esta flor imagina
la nieve cuidadosamente en todas partes cayendo;
nada que podamos percibir en este mundo iguala
el poder de tu intensa fragilidad: cuya textura
me incita con el color de sus países,
representando la muerte y el parasiempre con cada aliento
(no sé qué es lo que tienes que cierra
y abre; sólo algo en mí entiende
que la voz de tus ojos es más profunda que todas las rosas)
nadie, ni siquiera la lluvia, tiene unas manitas tan pequeñas.
Regarding poetry, that Oedipal triangle is exactly the way I feel. I often write because somebody got there first and said it better than I could. I used to despise T.S. Eliots The Wasteland because in each line I read I want to be Dante, and I cant. My own personal list of Dantes is a long one, but we could start with e. e.cummings. I have posted this poem before, but it won't hurt you to read it again, and besides now it comes with a Spanish translation.
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
algún lugar por el que nunca he viajado, felizmente más allá
de toda experiencia, tus ojos tienen su silencio:
en el más débil gesto tuyo hay cosas que me engloban,
o que no puedo tocar porque están demasiado cerca
tu menor mirada fácilmente me descerrará
aun si me he cerrado a mí mismo como a dedos,
tú me abres siempre pétalo a pétalo como la Primavera abre
(tocando hábilmente, misteriosamente) su primera rosa
o si es tu deseo cerrarme, yo y
mi vida nos cerraremos espléndidamente, de repente,
como cuando el corazón de esta flor imagina
la nieve cuidadosamente en todas partes cayendo;
nada que podamos percibir en este mundo iguala
el poder de tu intensa fragilidad: cuya textura
me incita con el color de sus países,
representando la muerte y el parasiempre con cada aliento
(no sé qué es lo que tienes que cierra
y abre; sólo algo en mí entiende
que la voz de tus ojos es más profunda que todas las rosas)
nadie, ni siquiera la lluvia, tiene unas manitas tan pequeñas.
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Aurora -