I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex

“I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history, and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.” Thus speaks Diane Wakoski, with reverence for the living tradition of verse. Her words do not merely honor one poet, but they remind us of what makes great poetry endure: that it is both the crown of its moment and a flame that burns across centuries.

The meaning of this saying is that true poetry crystallizes the deepest possibilities of language in its time. Every age speaks differently—its rhythms, its metaphors, its fears and hopes are woven into its words. A great poet does not merely use language; they stretch it, complicate it, make it shine with new dimensions. This is why history matters: poetry is not written in a void, but in the charged atmosphere of its era. The poet stands at the edge of time, bending its speech into something that will outlive time itself.

The origin of Wakoski’s reflection lies in her own confrontation with the giants of the past. As a modern poet, she recognized that reading Yeats, one cannot help but feel the immense authority of his voice, his mastery of symbol and music. His verse seemed to embody the full force of early twentieth-century English poetry—myth, politics, mysticism, and love all fused together. To stand before such work is to feel awe, even intimidation, for it seems almost impossible that later generations could rise higher.

Consider the example of Shakespeare, who in his own century stretched the English tongue until it seemed inexhaustible. His plays and sonnets captured love, ambition, betrayal, and destiny with a brilliance that left his contemporaries gasping. For many, he seemed unsurpassable. And yet, centuries later, Yeats arose, speaking in a language not Elizabethan but modern, and with equal depth. Here we see Wakoski’s insight proven: each age produces poets who make language at once the most complex and the most interesting tool of their era.

The lesson here is both humbling and encouraging. We must revere the great poets of the past, for they reveal to us what was possible in their time. But we must also recognize that the greatness of language is never exhausted. Each age has its own genius, each voice its own originality. To read Yeats and think “no one can top that” is not despair, but inspiration. For it means that we are called not to compete with the past, but to find the new depths of language in our own time.

Practically, this means we must both study and innovate. Read the great poets—carry their lines with you, let them teach you the craft of rhythm and image. But do not mimic them. Instead, listen to the language of your own world: the slang of streets, the voice of protest, the silence of technology, the griefs and joys of your century. Make them into poetry as alive and complex as Yeats’s was in his day. Only then can you add your flame to the eternal fire.

Thus the teaching endures: great poetry is always the summit of language in its historical moment, and it is thrilling to see how poets like Yeats made their moment immortal. Yet Wakoski reminds us that the task of the present is not to bow forever to the past, but to dare, as they dared, to make language new. For each generation, the challenge is the same: to take the speech of its time and bend it toward eternity. And so we, too, must strive, for the greatest poetry has not yet been written.