As Little As Possible

It may be true
That Spender asked Eliot
What he should do,
How much he should write –
Every day a little?

Crossing the road,
With bowed head, not
Unkindly Eliot answered:
“For most poets it is good
To write as little as possible.”

Barbara Everett is now retired from her teaching fellowship in English at Somerville College, Oxford, and from her lectureship at Oxford University

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