I read essay (originally a lecture) Poetry and Ambition by Donald Hall the other day and have been thinking about it since. There is much in it that struck me as relevant not just to poets but to writers in general. Particularly, I was struck by what he had to say about modern writing (“Many of these poems are often readable, charming, funny, touching, sometimes even intelligent. But they are usually brief, they resemble each other, they are anecdotal, they do not extend themselves, they make no great claims, they connect small things to other small things.”). And fame (“We have a culture crowded with people who are famous for being famous.”). And especially, of the importance of the poem over the poet (and how few writers are able to reach this stage of awareness):
when the poet becomes an instrument or agency of art, the poem freed from the poet’s ego may entertain the possibility of grandeur. And this grandeur, by a familiar paradox, may turn itself an apparent 180 degrees to tell the truth. Only when the poem turns wholly away from the petty ego, only when its internal structure fully serves art’s delicious purposes, may it serve to reveal and envision. “Man can embody truth”—said Yeats; I add the italic—”he cannot know it.” Embodiment is art and artfulness.
Of course, there is crankiness and contradiction in this essay but there are also some interesting kernels to be found. Anyway, worth a read.
myfanwy collins 