THE REASON there are so few good poets is not difficult to understand. The poet is sensitive to an extreme degree, and because of this, makes a big deal out of the small.
This is both a gift and a curse.
Admirable is the person who can produce something marvelous from an idea or two, from almost nothing.
But those who make something big out of what is small tend to be worrisome and unreasonable at best, and hot-headed psychopaths at worst—the kind of person who worries themselves sick over a rumor, or explodes over a slight, and this weak, anxious temperament (always making a big deal out of the small) is unsuited for calm and lengthy poetic contemplation.
The accomplished poet is paradoxical; they are cursed with a personality which makes a big deal out of everything—and yet, miraculously, they are also slow to anger, even-tempered, thick-skinned, and calm. They have to be, to write poetry.
The poet is in possession of that faculty which transforms the trivial—mere words, syllables, sounds—into sublime speech—and this uncommon, visionary character which fantastically creates the grandiose from nothing, is naturally the sort of person who is volatile in the extreme—but the poet, has a dual nature; is both extremist and conservative at once.
Such a person, with two powerful and absolutely opposing psychological tendencies, will, as a rule, be extremely uncommon among any population.
This is why poetry does not progress—we look back at previous eras and find genius randomly distributed; we observe in our own day a greater number of persons with leisure to write, thousands of writing programs encouraging poetry, and increased material conditions for sharing poetry, without any signs that poetry as a rule is better, or that poetic genius is expanding itself in any measurable way.
It even seems that genius is diminishing, and poetry is getting worse. Perhaps, in total, it is not getting worse—there are just more poets and so, more bad poetry. But poetry does not, by any measure, seem to be mechanically improving.
Poetry does not improve—because there is an algorithm for the good poet which does not change. The good poet—as a poet—will create something out of nothing. The weak person—as a person—will create something out of nothing. The good poet cannot be a weak person. The good person cannot be a good poet. Therefore, personality-wise, the great poet is impossible.
If what we have just said about the paradoxical task of poetry—making “the small big,”—seems to be mere psychological claptrap; nothing more than silly theory, the following, perhaps, will be better received.
It refers not to the person, or the poet as a person, but the poem—and therefore, is, perhaps, a better explanation for why the good poet is not common at all.
Poetry is thought and prose is incident.
Alarming incidents, thrilling incidents, horrific incidents, which writers recount, seek, embellish, and share, are told, sought, worked up, and shared for the simple reason that this is the life blood of all story-telling, that which thrills and excites.
Exactly. This is precisely the problem. Incident detracts and distracts from the great poem; incident belongs to fiction, not to poetry. Poets who share sensational incidents are actually harming themselves and their art—using what they think is necessary, but which is actually the opposite.
One incident, thoughtfully presented, is the soul of the poem. Fiction, by its very nature, is a series of incidents. The horrific or outlandish incident has the necessary space in fiction to live, breathe, and be believed.
An incident which is verifiable and viable outside of the poem does not belong in the poem.
A political reality does not belong in the poem.
The hour does not belong in the poem. The hour can be presented in fiction and the reader can think about that hour. But only the hour which thinks in a moment belongs in the poem.
Only thought belongs in the poem. Not incidents which live on their own.
There is a reason why Pope described poetry as, “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed,” and not, what oft was seen and completely understood and ne’er so well recounted.
Innumerable poets fail to understand this, and this is why, for more than any other reason, there are so few good poets.