"Many writers write a great deal, but very few write more than a very little of the real thing. So most writing must be displaced activity. When cockerels confront each other and daren’t fight, they busily start pecking imaginary grains off to the side. That’s displaced activity. Much of what we do at any level is a bit like that, I fancy. But hard to know which is which. On the other hand, the machinery has to be kept running. The big problem for those who write verse is keeping the machine running without simply exercising evasion of the real confrontation. If Ulanova, the ballerina, missed one day of practice, she couldn’t get back to peak fitness without a week of hard work. Dickens said the same about his writing—if he missed a day he needed a week of hard slog to get back into the flow."
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Academics from EnglandNovelists from EnglandPoets from EnglandTranslators from EnglandPoets laureate
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Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes, OM (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator and children's writer who for the last 14 years of his life occupied the role of Poet Laureate. He was the husband of Sylvia Plath, who influenced his writing style.
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