"Yeats did not become Yeats by hanging out with like-minded contemporaries or by attempting consciously to distinguish himself from his forebears. Nor did he become Yeats simply because he married a complicated, intelligent woman or because he was appointed to the Irish Senate or because he engaged in psychical research. Many people might do such things, might find deep satisfaction in such things, while remaining incapable of writing a single sentence. A few people might also take equally hard-won satisfaction in rhyming their name with the word 'slates,' in rhyming their wife’s name with the word 'forge,' in arranging a single sentence into four iambic tetrameter lines whose rhythmic density asks (as the title of the poem suggests) 'To be carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee.'" James Longenbach • The Nation

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