T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

‘For us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business’.

Eliot’s disenchanted view of writing poetry probably sounds familiar to anyone who is serious about practising the craft. It’s full of quotable phrases. Writing poetry as a ‘raid on the inarticulate’ is perhaps the best description of the process that I know.

This is only an extract. I would like to admire Four Quartets as a whole but I think it’s very uneven. It contains beautiful lines and images, profound thoughts, and then it clunks into bad prose or obscurity.

I suspect you can split Eliot devotees into those who admire everything, and those who prefer the early work.

Even in this extract ‘For us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business’ sounds magnificent but won’t sustain any prolonged consideration. Eliot was Banker, Critic, publisher and editor. He did a lot more than try to write poetry, and today the poet who thinks he or she can avoid all the trappings of ‘poeting’ and get by simply trying to write better poems is probably deluded.

This is taken from 'The complete poems and plays 1909-1950'.