Poem by George Murray

Eyewear is very glad to welcome George Murray to its steadily growing pantheon of superb Friday-featured poets. I first met him in Paris three or more years ago, and we chatted at a sidewalk cafe near my flat, on the corner of Cherche Midi and rue St-Placide, a busy afternoon.

I was impressed then with what he had achieved, in terms of writing and publishing, for such a young man. Since then, he's done even more. He was one of the 20 poets in my survey of new Canadian poetry for New American Writing, in 2005.

Murray's books of poetry include The Hunter (McClelland & Stewart, 2003) and The Cottage Builder's Letter (M&S, 2001). His fourth collection is scheduled for publication in spring 2007 with Nightwood Editions.

He has been widely anthologized and has published poems, fiction, and criticism in journals and magazines such as Antigonish Review, Capilano Review, Contemporary Verse, Descant, Fiddlehead, Iowa Review, Jacket, New Quarterly, nthposition, Pequod, Prism International, and Slope. He is also a regular reviewer for several publications, including the Globe and Mail and is the editor of the very successful online lit site, Bookninja.com. See also www.georgemurray.ca

Mostly The World Waits

The vandals here paint with fire, masters
every one. If only that which stands
before us is true, no wonder old men
marshal armies. Mostly the world waits

patiently. Mostly people get on
with things. Mostly they are unaware
of waiting. Mostly they find themselves off
in a desirous space of conscious

hope. Mostly the end arrives and leaves
without notice. The sky is not falling.
It is a suspended canopy,
hung from high-tensile airplane cable rising

into spaces we can only see at night.
Sit still and enjoy the art. Your turn is today.

poem by George Murray

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

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