Poetry

Sylvia Plath derided The Bell Jar as “a pot boiler”. (That is, a piece of art produced to keep the heat on.)

The poet Paul Valéry said that, for every poem you write, God gives you one line, and you supply the rest.2 Amy Lowell, another poet, described those in-between lines, the ones you provide, as “putty”. You get no credit for God’s lines; all artistry is in the puttying.