The Strength of Poetry

Why should a poet feel the need to be original? What is the relationship between genius and apprenticeship? James Fenton examines some of the most intriguing questions behind the making of the art - issues of creativity and the earning of success, of judgement, tutorage, rivalry, and ambition. He goes on to consider the juvenilia of Wilfred Owen, the scarred lines of Philip Larkin, the inheritance of imperialism, and issues of constituency in Seamus Heaney. He looks too at Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and their contrasting feminisms, and at D.H. Lawrence, welcoming the dark. The climax of the book is his extensive discussion of Auden.