Quotes I’ve Saved #4: Clive James on Poetry
There is a “clear division between poets who are hoping to achieve something by keeping technical considerations out of it, and other poets who want to keep technique out of it because they don’t have any.” (from his essay in Poetry magazine). The second half of his “division” recalls to my mind, of course, the legions of students I’ve taught who start by knowing nothing of craft, nothing about the stream they’re swimming in, students who disdain studying meter and form because it doesn’t “fit” their ethos. How many of us have assigned exercises in meter to develop some...
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