What t.s. eliot knew about writing

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

They certainly are the unacknowledged teachers.

They spend their  days searching their memories

they understand the meaning of ...

• Perfect words
• Appropriate rhymes (if they use them)
• Accurate rhythms
• Sensible syntax
• Emotional connection

And they practice

no writers spend more time composing so few lines

aS W.B. YEATS WROTE IN his "ADAMS cURSE":

Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,

Two-stanza writing lesson from four quartets"

• Expresses the act of serious writing
• Tells us how we should write 

From part 1, "burnt norton"

From part 1, "burnt norton"

• Words strain,/Crack and sometimes break
• under the burden/Under the tension, slip,
• slide, perish,/Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,/
• Will not stay still. Shrieking voices/Scolding, mocking,
• or merely chattering,/ Always assail them.

From "burnt norton"

• Words strain,/Crack and sometimes break
• under the burden/Under the tension, slip,
• slide, perish,/Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,/
• Will not stay still. Shrieking voices/Scolding, mocking,
• or merely chattering,/ Always assail them.

From Part IV – "Little Gidding"

From "Little Gidding"

• And every phrase/And sentence that is right (where every word is at home/
• Taking its place to support the others,/The word neither diffident nor 
• ostentatious,/An easy commerce of the old and new,/The common word exact
• without vulgarity,/The formal word precise but not pedantic,/The complete
• consort dancing together), every phrase and every sentence... 

is an end and a beginning