What Makes a Poem Irresistible?
The other day for some reason I needed to refer to my indispensable Oxford Book of English Verse. In the process of leafing through its pages I met a couple of old friends—poems I enjoy so much that it was impossible for me to be reminded of their existence and not permit myself to read them. Now, while there are many poems I feel similarly passionate about, the absolute number of such poems compared to the number of poems I have ever read remains remarkably small. So I thought it might be worthwhile having a closer look at the two poems and trying to come to some conclusions as to what it is about each of them that makes them irresistible to me. (Continued)
