22 JUNE 1991, Page 31

Poor taste

Sir: Hilary Corke exposes much of Heaney's verse as pretentious nonsense, and tells us that it is not poetry but `gestures towards poetry' (Books, 8 June). But poor judges in the media hail him as our 'greatest living poet'. What is the explanation?

Gibbon said that 'the poetical reputation of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age'.

Are we to conclude that the poetical reputation of Mr Heaney condemns the taste of our age?

A. L. Rowse

St Austell, Cornwall