Elizabeth Gilbert on Ruth Stone's genius

[JCRJohnson]

Not insightful, poetic- with the licence to avoid any actual basis in fact. I could tell of searching for the poem, tracking it down in the nooks and crannies of the broken city- catching glimpses of it as it ducks into an alley following one of the cast off ghosts of society... how I have to be careful sometimes not to scare it off... to just sit quietly, not quite looking at it until it came close and settles into me.

All BS of course but it sounds so pretty is has to be true right?

[skoaner]

@JCRJohnson Poetry is not logical. Words make you think and feel of certain things and there isn't always a clear answer. Poetry requires imagination and divergent thinking. She's describing a state of mind she must be in in order to write. And just because you fail to understand her process doesn't mean it's BS. The only thing that stinks here is your boring, predictable, mechanized thinking.

[JCRJohnson]

@skoaner Her story is as much a fantasy as 'Lord of the Rings' but Tolkien never insisted that Gandalf visited him and narrated the thing to him. If she truly believes in the literalism of what she is saying, which she at least pretends to do, then she suffers from a psychological dysfunction. The reality of the universe is so amazing, exciting and challenging... it is a shame when people believe that the fantasy that they create is in some way superior to the world we actually live in.

[leconfidant]

@JCRJohnson She doesn't believe it. She feels it's a better way of relating to creativity than egotism that's all. I believe it as a point of fact, partly because it's perfectly logical that ideas come to us from outside our brains, and partly because every artist experiences this phenomenon, and partly because scientific realism, for all its beauty, does not make a great art. If it did, fashion designers would be part-time astro-physicists and vice versa.

[leconfidant]

@JCRJohnson I heard this objection before, but it's illogical. Just because someone uses a metaphor doesn't mean they're wrong. All language uses metaphors at some level, because associations are pervasive. To use a metaphor is a perfectly legitimate mode of discussion and argument. If there is a dry, logical scientific way to describe the process of creating poetry, go ahead and tell us how it happens in the language of dry logic and emprical science.

[BrokenneckYgor]

Like to see EG in a catfight

[ZOMGJUSTUS]

Ruth Stone is amazing, this is so true.

[AstridVonAij]

This talk is so beautiful, so insightful. She is a philosopher more than a novelist. Ja.

xo- Astrid