W.H. Auden observed that, while bad art is always with us, we don’t have to do anything about it. It dies on its own.
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.
The problem is the undeservedly forgotten. It’s astonishing to me how little attention the poems of Charles Reznikoff and Lorine Niedecker received. I can’t quite believe that the work of the 17th century poet Thomas Traherne was not always part of English literature. The poems were unknown until they were rescued from a trunk in someone’s attic and published just before World War I.
Auden, in his essay “Reading,” points out six useful things that critics can do. Helping readers with insight into known works is beyond me. But I like talking about poets whose work is, by my lights, unjustly neglected.
• Source: W.H. Auden’s essay “Reading” is The Dyer’s Hand; New York: Vintage International, 1989, p. 10.
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