The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years

"The Poet's Poet: Essays on the Character and Mission of the Poet" by Elizabeth Atkins is a study that looks into how poets in English verse saw themselves and their place in the world during the previous century and a half, probably during the start of the 1900s. It focuses on what poets thought and felt about themselves and their purpose as artists, aiming to discover common ground in their different viewpoints while recognizing that there are contradictions in how they thought about what makes a poet. At the beginning, it is argued that poets struggle with knowing themselves and believing they are important. Atkins suggests that while poets try to move beyond their own egos to show a greater truth through their poems, a lot of their work ends up being about themselves. The "egocentric circle" makes it hard to display their art. This leads to a broader discussion about the duties and shortcomings of poets to share essential truths without showing too much of who they are, highlighting the stress between who poets are as people and what the goals of poetic expression are.