From “Another and Another Before That: Some Thoughts on Reading”
by Carl Phillips
One way to look at reading: as the lifelong construction of a map by which to trace and plumb what it has ever meant to be in the world, and by which to gain perspective on that other, ongoing map—the one that marks our own passage through the world as we both find and make it.
If all we can ever know comes filtered through the lens of our own experience, and if we are readers, some part of our very selves will be the result of what we have read—this is obvious enough. Good writers not only have read widely and deeply, but they continue to do so—not in order to be better writers, but because for them the act of reading is as inseparable from living as writing is.
As for the fear that by reading the great work that has come before one’s original voice will either be influenced away from itself or overwhelmed into utter silence: an original voice can perhaps half willingly be seduced; it is rarely mastered.
The whole essay can be read at http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19238
