The want of poetical power is the impelling force in the case of most versifiers. They would fain be poets, and imagine that the best way is to try to write poetry and to publish what they write. They will never see their mistake. Equus asinus still believes that the possession of an organ of noise is sufficient, with a little practice, to enable him to sing like a nightingale. 

John Davidson (1857–1909)

It is necessary for the socialist poet to have more impressive technical equipment than his apolitical contemporaries because his task is that much more important.

Alan Bold (1970)