Writing That Moves And Creates

“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.” – May Sarton

One of my favorite poets, May Sarton was born on this date in 1912 in Wondelgem, Belgium.  After emigrating to the U.S. at age 4, she grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and began writing poetry as a young teen.  Her first published volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was released in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938, both after she had decided that it was acting and not writing that she most wanted to pursue.

 

She actually started an acting company in New York, but with the ongoing success of her writing career, she finally left the theater to devote full time to her true compassion. During her prolific career that stretched to a final book of poetry, Coming Into Eighty in 1994,  Sarton wrote two dozen books of fiction and many works of nonfiction, including autobiographies and journals, a play and several screenplays. Still, she was best known and most highly regarded as a poet. 

                                                 When asked about the sometimes-tedious process of revising and rewriting, something every writer must face, she shrugged it off. “Revision is not going back and fussing around, but going forward into the process of creation.”

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