Kevin Higgins Turns 40 Today

Eyewear is pleased to celebrate the 40th birthday of Irish poet Kevin Higgins today, with a poem of his. Higgins is one of the best of the new generation of Irish poets, and by far the most savage in his wit. His new book from Salmon is forthcoming in 2008.

Days

We’d let the Daddy-long-legs take
the tower-block hallway,
as we took time out
from demos in support
of those more fortunate
than ourselves
for a feast of taramsalata
on vintage brown bread
washed down
with the best can of Kestrels
a fifty pence piece could buy.

Our kitchen sink may have been
a failed utopian experiment;
the revolutionary group we’d just joined
a corpse passing wind.
But all we needed was
a draft to sit in
to talk about Agent Orange;
and with your rolled cigarettes,
my missing teeth,

we were insurgents waiting
to be hanged at dawn;
as we watched
the flat be torn apart
by a Keith Moon cat.
All dressed down
and someone to be.

Whatever happened to alienation?
Those were the days.

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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