What role does subject-matter play in poetry?
Poetry, when it is reviewed, is normally discussed on the basis of its subject-matter, because that is the most tangible part of the work. More important than what is being said is how it is being said – including the sub-music of the poem, its undercurrent, its pitch, its tone. These are the intangibles really, rather like the whistle which only a certain species of animal can hear. But poetry itself teaches you how to hear these sounds and you won’t have ventured many lines into a poem before you know whether its author is capable of operating in the multi-level way which mastery of the art demands. However tongue-in-cheek he may have intended to be, I rather agree with Duncan Bush who said that – similar to the manner in which a trained musician can tell, by merely looking at a score, whether it is any good or not – a trained poet can judge a poem’s worth by looking at it (even before actually reading it). Texture is always one of the first attributes to reveal itself. If poems coul
