The poetic universe will not be divided into hard poets and easy poets. The terms are shorthand for very approximate tendencies, and “hard” poets sometimes write “easy” or at least relatively welcoming poems, and “easy” poets often complicate matters in unexpected and fruitful ways. Furthermore, what constitutes difficulty or simplicity is largely a matter of individual sensibility. One reader’s unendurable Ezra Pound (mine) is another reader’s genius. As an intemperate youth, I eagerly plunged into the philosophical conundrums of Wallace Stevens’s most formidable late poems. Now I look for poetry that makes my throat catch.

Should a poem be hard or easy to understand?