Words Worth Noting - November 17, 2023

“Distrust every poet who says to you, ‘I do not know where this came from.’ The proper answer is, ‘We none of us know where it comes from, but you have got to know where it is going to.’ You have got to have an image to be evoked before the end; and to work up to that from the beginning. In that sense, all good poetry is written backwards. That is exactly the difference between the inspired poet and the inspiring poet. The bad, or inspired, poet, lets the first lines dictate the last lines. The good, or inspiring, poet, lets the last lines dictate the first.”

G.K. Chesterton in New York American November 19, 1932, quoted in “Chesterton’s Mail Bag” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)