"Why should a poet feel the need to be original? How does genius apprentice itself? What connections exist between bad thinking and bad verse, or good verse and bad politics? In these sharp-eyed critiques and appreciations of the essential poets of our time, Whitbread Prize-winner James Fenton examines some of the most intriguing questions behind the making of poetry - questions of creativity and the "earning" of success, of judgment, tutorage, rivalry, and ambition." "In these lectures, many of which appeared in The New York Review of Books, Fenton makes sense of the last century in poetry, and he explores its antecedents and legacies with the lucidity, wit, and gusto that have made him famous."--BOOK JACKET.