Editorial
Poetry News had some kind words for us in its summer 1996 issue. ‘The pieces in The Interpreter’s House are quite unusual, as editor Merryn Williams looks for “the union of simplicity and mystery that makes writing memorable”. The first issue was interesting because of this third dimension; the works mutate and change meanings so they are enticing to reread’. Many thanks.
On the same page, Paul Muldoon, the Poetry Society’s new president, tells readers that, to quote Eliot, ‘poetry must be difficult’. He’s a good poet but I found his remarks depressing. He says that ‘simple little nursery rhymes and poems about birds or bees will not do’. No, indeed. But must we also accept that ‘poetry has to have a certain amount of difficulty to reflect the times .... it’s no good expecting to be able to lift a poem and read it immediately’?
Wordsworth said that poetry should give immediate pleasure to its readers. Hardy said that ‘much good verse is lost by the simple inability of readers to rack their brains to solve conundrums’. Housman said that he knew a line was good when it made his skin bristle ‘so that the razor ceases to act’. That is, roughly, my own position. I don’t believe that poetry is a minority interest, like Sanskrit or the Times crossword puzzle; I believe that poetry springs from the deepest layers of our consciousness and should be universally accessible. I will publish difficult poems, if they are good enough, but what I look for is memorable images, formal skill, new angles on old subjects, work that disturbs and excites. Not difficulty. And the same applies to the fiction, of course.
On the same page, Paul Muldoon, the Poetry Society’s new president, tells readers that, to quote Eliot, ‘poetry must be difficult’. He’s a good poet but I found his remarks depressing. He says that ‘simple little nursery rhymes and poems about birds or bees will not do’. No, indeed. But must we also accept that ‘poetry has to have a certain amount of difficulty to reflect the times .... it’s no good expecting to be able to lift a poem and read it immediately’?
Wordsworth said that poetry should give immediate pleasure to its readers. Hardy said that ‘much good verse is lost by the simple inability of readers to rack their brains to solve conundrums’. Housman said that he knew a line was good when it made his skin bristle ‘so that the razor ceases to act’. That is, roughly, my own position. I don’t believe that poetry is a minority interest, like Sanskrit or the Times crossword puzzle; I believe that poetry springs from the deepest layers of our consciousness and should be universally accessible. I will publish difficult poems, if they are good enough, but what I look for is memorable images, formal skill, new angles on old subjects, work that disturbs and excites. Not difficulty. And the same applies to the fiction, of course.
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