Dear God that Rosen poem is terrible.

Ha! There’s an argument that it’s actually impossible to write creatively about things that really matter. Because you end up compromising the essence of the thing.

The ghost of Wilfred Owen: ex-fucking-cuse?

Yeah maybe though I really really subscribe to the best poets being rendered silent about the stuff that is existential. Some things are simply impossible to communicate. So then how do you deal with those things?

I think I disagree in quite a strong way - writing poetry about the existential without sounding like a maudlin 14 year old is *the benchmark*. We require poetry for exactly those parts of life (death, love, longing, depression, war) that are hard to capture the depth of through prose alone!

Sure but actually doing that is incredibly difficult.

Oh absolutely, but… some people have the ability and most, alas, do not

Let me give an example! It is impossible to write about hmmm death. Literally impossible. Pure uncommunicable alterity.

You can certainly write about what it is to be dying, or to have lost people you love, or your feelings about death in general and these can be good and moving and valuable!

It's a bit cliche, but I still think Auden's poem about that sense of "fuck you, why is the world still going on as usual when everything is ashes because they're gone" is superb.