There's not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call

“There’s not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call of his memory a vast quantity of poetry that composes his mental library.” Thus declared Anthony Hecht, master of form and one of the last great classicists of the twentieth century. His words are not merely a reflection on poets, but on the very nature of creativity: that no great work arises in isolation, but from the storehouse of what has been remembered, absorbed, and cherished.

The meaning of this saying lies in the idea that true artistry is born from immersion. A poet’s memory is not empty; it is filled with the voices of predecessors, with rhythms and cadences heard long ago, with lines that have lodged themselves deep in the spirit. This mental library is more than recollection—it is fuel, foundation, and inspiration. A poet without such a treasury is like a warrior without weapons, or a mason without stones. The act of writing is not the creation of something from nothing, but the weaving together of remembered voices into something new.

The origin of this insight comes from Hecht’s own life as both soldier and scholar. He lived through war, carrying its horrors into his poetry, but he also carried the verses of others—Milton, Donne, Auden—within him. These poems were not simply references but companions. They provided him with structure when chaos threatened, with consolation when despair pressed near. In this way, his mental library was a fortress, a wellspring, and a workshop. He knew firsthand that the poet who has read deeply and remembered faithfully can draw upon an inner chorus whenever the solitary labor of creation begins.

History confirms this truth. T.S. Eliot, in writing The Waste Land, filled his work with echoes of Dante, Shakespeare, and the Upanishads, drawing from a memory rich with literature. His greatness lay not only in his originality, but in his ability to summon a vast tradition and transform it into a voice of modernity. Or think of Homer’s rhapsodes, who did not invent new verses each night, but carried thousands of lines in memory, ready to recite at command. Their mental libraries were living vessels of culture, sustaining entire civilizations through song.

The lesson here is that memory is not passive—it is an active discipline and an act of devotion. To become a poet, or indeed a master of any craft, one must read, absorb, and carry forward what has come before. The great minds of the past are not meant to be left on dusty shelves; they are meant to be alive within us, ready to be summoned, shaping our thought and deepening our expression. To neglect this is to cut oneself off from the river of tradition that nourishes all art.

Practically, this means we must build our own mental libraries. Read poetry not casually but attentively. Memorize lines that move you, so they are with you in solitude. Carry them into your daily life, recall them when you walk, when you rest, when you face sorrow or joy. In time, your mind will become a chamber echoing with voices, and when you write, those echoes will rise to guide you. This practice is not only for poets—it is for all who wish to live with depth and richness of spirit.

Thus the teaching endures: every great poet draws strength from a vast mental library, filled with the living words of others. Anthony Hecht reminds us that memory itself is an art, one that shapes the imagination as surely as pen and ink. Let us then cultivate this inner library, filling it with wisdom, rhythm, and beauty. For in the moment of need, it will stand ready, a treasury at the beck and call of the mind, sustaining us as we, too, seek to add our voices to the eternal chorus of poetry.