Let It Go

William Empson

It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
    The more things happen to you the more you can't
        Tell or remember even what they were.

The contradictions cover such a range.
    The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
        You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.

Commentary

After a dazzling start1, Empson’s poetic career seemed to slow down in his later years, as he concentrated on literary analysis2. Let It Go should perhaps be interpreted in this light, as a sort of apology for not writing more poetry. Beyond that, it’s fairly self-explanatory (in marked contrast to much of Empson’s work), so I won’t spend any more time boring you :-)

— Thomas

Links

Empson’s villanelle Missing Dates can be read at poem #202 The commentary at this site includes an analysis of Empson’s poetic style, his philosophy and influence on other poets. Worth a dekko.

  1. He was celebrated for his writing while still an undergraduate at Cambridge (where he read Mathematics). ↩

  2. In which field he earned a reputation as perhaps the most important critic of the twentieth century; his only real challenger to the title is the young T. S. Eliot. Empson’s book Seven Types Of Ambiguity is probably the single most influential work of criticism since, oh, I don’t know, Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy (at the very least). ↩

The Wondering Minstrels, poem #233 · 12 October 1999

Poem selected by Abraham Thomas

Fair use

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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.

Godfrey Rust (Ontologyx) · 7 September 2006

I just found this on your site. I’ve always loved this piece and wanted a copy for my noticeboard. I heard Empson reading in Warwick around 1975 and asked him to read this. I asked him if it was (as you suggest) a sort of explanation for stopping writing poetry, and he was ambivalent about it. I don’t remember his response exactly but he gave the impression that he had something else in mind.

Thanks

Godfrey Rust

London

Mike Farman · 28 August 2007

I love this poem, particularly for Empson’s creative mangling of the syntax…and for the brevity. Features of other poems of his too. His reason for not writing more poetry should be attended to by many other poets who have too much to say about too little.

Mike Farman.