That Was The Last Few Weeks That Were

You may have noticed Eyewear was quiet over these last few weeks of Hot Americana and cold-eyed justice: lethal injections going wrong, Scooby-Doo's creator dying, the brutal dictator and ex-Rumsfeld ally being hanged in cold blood with crude bile and Tony Blair (back from the Bee Gees) silent as a church mouse, Robin Cook's headstone proudly asserting his pacifist stance, George Dubya creating a new 'Nam (as was long predicted by anti-war protesters in 2003) with his Lyndon Baines Johnsonian troop escalations, while Hugo (Chavez, not Williams) proceeds with his own Marx-sanctioned version of Monopoly (he takes all the cards, Luxury Tax be darned); Apocalypto Box Office Smash....

well I was. No more. A quick blog-standard speed-reply, below, in order:

Cruel and inhuman; sad, one of my favourite cartoons, especially Shaggy; cruel and inhuman; TB needs to speak a little louder, I can't hear him; Robin was the best of them; Bush may be wrong but Iraq can't be left to rot; Hugo has some good ideas but should share his toys; cruel and inhuman.

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...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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