American poet and novelist May Sarton says: “I feel more alive when I'm writing than I do at any other time - except when I'm making love. Two things when you forget time, when nothing exists except the moment - the moment of the writing, the moment of love. That perfect concentration in bliss.”

I consider it the best remark on writing.

May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton. Altogether, she wrote 53 books, including 19 novels, 17 books of poetry, and 15 nonfiction works, but her most enduring work lies in her journals and memoirs – out of three, I’ve read only one, The Journal of a Solitude. Critical recognition came late in her life, and more than forty of Sarton's books are still in print.

On the craft of poetry, she says, “Right now, most poetry is just self-indulgence.....The craft is not something you paste on; it is organic, and you're discovering what you felt or meant to say by putting it into form. The struggle with the form is the struggle with yourself?”

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“If you're a poet at all, you must value your poetry above anything else because it's given. Like mathematics and music, I believe that poets are born, not made. You can say, 'I'll write a novel next year; I have a good idea.' But you can't say, 'I'll write a poem next Wednesday because I have some free time. You can't. Will doesn't operate.”

Solitude was always a challenge to her, and many times she mentioned that if you were in solitary confinement, what would you do if you were a writer? 

Her answer was – “I don't think I'd write a novel, but I'm sure I'd write poetry. Because poetry is between you and God - I mean, I'm not a believer in the obvious sense, but it's something that comes from so deep in the subconscious you can't control it.”

Her poem "The Silence Now" effectively conveys her views on solitude, silence, and their importance in life.

Read on - 

These days, the silence is immense.

It is there deep down, not to be escaped.

The twittering flight of gold finches,

The three crows cawing in the distance

Only brush the surface of this silence

Full of mourning, the long drawn-out

Tug and sigh of waters never still—

The ocean out there and the inner ocean.

Only animals comfort because they live.

In the present and cannot drag us down

Into those caverns of memory full of loss.

They pay no attention to the thunder

Of distant waves. My dog’s eager eyes

Watch me as I sit by the window thinking.

At the bottom of the silence, what lies in wait?

Is it love? Is it death? Too early or too late?

What is it I can have that I still want?

My swift response is to what cannot stay,

The dying daffodils, peonies on the way,

Iris just opening, lilac turning brown

In the immense silence where I live alone.

It is the transient that touches me, old,

Those light-shot clouds as the sky clears,

A passing glory can still move to tears,

Moments of pure joy like some fairy gold

Too evanescent to be kept or told.

And the cat’s soft footfall on the stairs

Keeps me alive, makes Nowhere into Here.

At the bottom of the silence, it is she

Who speaks of an eternal Now to me.

(Thanks to the copyright holders for the text matter)

(Top Photo courtesy Guillaume de Germain with thanks)