Quote for the day: "Writing springs new experience into being"

In an article first published in The Writer magazine, the late poet William Stafford asked the question, "How can we carry our most fervent feelings right into the living room of our readers and still be firm, solid, satisfying, convincing?" Near the end of the article, he listed examples of stories and poems that "make the reader encounter the human involvements that command our emotions," including David Copperfield and Emily Dickinson's "I heard a fly buzz when I died."

So here's the quote:

"Writing--literature--springs new experience into being; it is much more than just partially achieved recollections transferred from a fervent author to an accepting reader: a new life springs into focus, by being told. To create means to change, to change writer and reader.

"I never came back to earth after reading Chekhov.

"Now when I reach for my book--or my pen--Mr. Murdstone raises his heavy cane. I hear a fly buzz. Beyond the hedge in a gush of color and laughter Mr. Dick releases his gigantic, staggering kite to the wind."--William Stafford, "Being Tough, Being Gentle," reprinted in Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation