Resilience and consuming drive to produce are critical to writers. So is determination to stand tall before truths one confronts. A writer who wants to do work that lasts must be equal to the power of observed truth. Poet Robinson Jeffers was one of those writers.
But in great writing, no truth is simple. The words contain all the sensation, all the emotion, and all the cogitation of the writer’s lived experience—whether those elements be immediate in the text or not. We have uncovered the story of how Jeffers composed the stirring lines that bring on the end of the poem “Hurt Hawks,” and we believe this new context adds to the prismatic splendor of the poetic image.
The Stoneslide Corrective occasionally studies early drafts of writings, in order to learn, to instruct, to grow, and sometimes in order to explore for the sheer enjoyment of compositional exploration. Consulting the work of scholars, archivists, biographers, librarians, private foundations and repositories, and, when appropriate, consulting the writers themselves, we re-create the process through which a work was brought into being, often including the many drafts writers go through.
Note: All historical work is verified by HistoriRight, Inc.
Unless you’re at church, temple, mosque, or a court proceeding, do feel free to turn up the volume of the device you’re using to read this (except your brain, of course; please don’t turn up that device’s volume).
