Granted a real talent and an access to experience, a poet deserves the name and earns it chiefly by his honesty. It is never enough that he be up with or beyond the times; who knows what those are? Technical feats rise, shine, evaporate, and fall, and there are unread poets who could have taught Shakespeare lessons in prosody. The sources from which poets “steal” metaphors and ideas often show the difference between knowing all about poetry and being a poet: it is not a matter of know-how, for if it were, Abraham Cowley would be greater than John Milton...