It seems like a lot of books are written by people with a heavy

I heard Antonio Porchia only had two books at his home, and no education whatsoever.

He wrote aphorisms which, to me, are sometimes very empty. Some of them are pretty entriguing, however. He was admired by Borges and Henry Miller. Here's a good collection: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antonio_Porchia

Utimately, I think aphorisms are pretty much the only genre in which 'natural geniuses' can write. All other forms - be it poetry, novel, theater, dialogue, or essay - demand technical knowledge and an actual education. Maybe free verse too, although most free verse written by amateurs seems to me to be crap. Sometimes, perhaps, they might be good at narrative writing, but only if they have heard many stories themselves...

You can also find some examples on popular music, but that's very rare. Some of the Beatles songs, for instance, contain inventive imagery. That's probably more due to luck or marijuana than to anything else, though.

(I have no source for Antonio Porchia only owning two books. I saw it quoted in an interview with a poet who studies his work, so I think it's probably true.)

>>9050945
Hunter S. Thompson
Charles Bukowski
Haruki Murakami

You'll find it more in sensualist literature.

>>9050945
anon, contrary to what hollywood movies tell you, people who didnt spend decades of their lives reading the western canon and studying works deeply tend not to write masterpieces. you can find a handful of examples of "crack geniuses" who were somewhat divorced from the mainstream literary tradition and still wrote some good stuff, but they are so incredibly rare, and there are usually still huge asterisks next to their "crack" status.

see for example >>9051074
literally all garbage

>>9051077
fuck off nigger, hst is goat

>>9051077
Not really true. Plenty of people who haven't read much write very popular books.

Hubert Selby, Jr. , Donald Ray Pollock, George Saunders, I could go on.

>>9051082
>dude muh drugs lmao -takes a hit-

it's only good at appealing to sheltered suburban white kids who fetishize drug culture without ever experiencing it themselves. HST might've been a cool guy, but a good writer he was not, and his literary reputation is largely disregarded in favor of his journalistic reputation.

>>9051084
>saunders

literally has a MFA from a top mfa program. pray tell what do you think they do at mfa programs?

>selby and pollock didn't read a lot

nigga what? ok idk who pollock is but apparently he has an english degree, so presumably he reads a non trivial amount.

like are you conflating with "not having a literature degree from harvard" with "doesn't read a lot"?

>>9050945
Moby-Dick

>>9051084
are you fucking serious? Saunders? gtfo.