I have learned one thing: not to look down Too much upon the damned. - Geoffrey Hill

For this creating to take place (as it does from time to time) words have to be accepted as heirs of their forebears, as we are of ours. And in each case, what exists is often only a bankrupt inheritance; or the hinterlands of the unspoken.

I think art has a right—not an obligation—to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.

Primroses; salutations; the miry skull
of a half-eaten ram; vicious wounds in earth
opening. What seraphs are afoot.