Understanding Poetry [antikvár]

AcknowledgementsThe author and publishers wish to thank the following publishers, authors and agents for permission to reprint copyright material:Jonathan Cape Ltd for an extract from In the Country by W. H. Davies; Chatto and Windus Ltd for an extract from Wilfred Owen; Eyre Spottiswoode Ltd for an extract from Dead Boy by John Crowe Ransom; Faber Faber Ltd for Tea at the Pa/az of Hoon from Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens; Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd for Field-Glasses by Andrew Young; Leonard Woolf and The Hogarth Press Ltd for an extract from To the 'Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf; Liveright Publishing Corporation for North Labrador from Collected Poems by Hart Crane; Macmillan Co. Ltd and the Trustees of the Hardy Estate for extracts from A. Broken Appointment and Weathers, and the complete poem I Look into my Glass, from Collected Poems by Thomas Hardy; Macmillan Co, Ltd and Mrs Iris Wise for A Glass of Beer by James Stephens; Professor Charles Madge for an extract from Blocking the Pass; Laurence Pollinger Ltd and Jonathan Cape Ltd for an extract from Death of the Hired Man from Collected Poems by Robert Frost; Routledge Kegan Paul Ltd for The 'Embankment, Conversion and Autumn by T. E. Hiilme; The Society of Authors, as the literary representative of the Estate of the late A. E. Housman, and Jonathan Cape Ltd, for On Wenlock Edge and Others, I am not the First from Collected Poems by A. E. Housman; The Literary Trustees of Walter De La Mare and the Society of Authors for The Railway Junction by Walter De La Mare; A. P. Watt Son and International Authors NV for extracts from The Cool Web and The Legs by Robert Graves (from Collected Poems 1959 published by Cassell Co. Ltd).1Poetry and YouNot longago twenty people were asked the question, 'Do you read poetry ?' They were adults ranging in age from twenty-one to nearly seventy, a cross-section of society including teachers, factory-workers, a doctor, a professional musician, three farmhands, several clerks and shop assistants. Of these twenty people, questioned individually, one said she read poetry constantly, preferring it to all other recreations. One said he read it fairly often, mainly contemporary poems in magazines and anthologies. Four said they occasionally read poetry: they picked up a book perhaps once a year. The remaining fourteen said they never read poetry. Most were not hostile, though two or three thought it was rubbish and were strongly opposed to it. The rest had nothing against it; they just weren't interested.So if my sample was a fair one, as I am sure it was, it seems that at least seventy per cent of the adult population have little or no use for poetry. Another twenty per cent can do without it. Only one in ten regards it as of real value. Of course my sample was too small for the inquiry to be considered scientific. Nor did I take the experiment any further and try to discover the quality of the poetry read by the two who enjoyed it, nor the various reasons why the seventy per cent had little use for it. But I did ask one further question: 'Did you once read poetry ?' To this question all but three answered unhesitatingly, 'Yes'. It seems that nearly everyone reads som poetry at school, and few continue to read it afterwards. Is poetry just something you are taught at school and forget when you go out into the world ?In this book I want to try especially to reach two classes of