SIR,—Yes, some people do care sufficiently about poetry today to
resent with Mr. Grigson 'attitudes to the arts of consciousness and purpose' (Spectator, July 27). Are such attitudes due perhaps to the present withering
of creativeness, and to the growth of criticism and classification into major activities? Cer- tainly, some of the most exciting poetry of recent years has come not from any group of poets, but from such lone walkers as the Rev. R. S. Thomas and Mr. Charles Causley. Their poetry is rich and vivid as well as being technically accomplished. In comparison, much of the Fifties' output of poetry seems to be but the elaborate skeleton of verse with- out the flesh of vision. Thus, poetry has become not a sudden insight into reality but a tiny comment on the margin of life. Surely, even for the contemporary poet the tigers of wrath are still wiser than the horses of instruction.—Yours faithfully,
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