Hart Crane in Britain: A Bridge Too Far?

Maurice Riordan has edited a Selected Poems of Hart Crane (pictured) for the British market, with a lovely, passionate Introduction that, unlike so much of the cold-handed, stiff-lipped sort of writing and mini-enthusiasm that gets doled out sparingly in the UK, for poets like Crane, is, actually, wonderfully enthusiastic, and humane. Riordan observes that Crane was in London, once, for a Christmas dinner with Graves and Riding at their houseboat, which is a treat to imagine - and that event in 1929 was "the high watermark" of his reception in British literary circles. In short, Crane has never been fully integrated into the British poetic sensibility. As Riordan points out, Leavis found him turgidly "rhetorical", and Douglas Dunn greeted his Complete Poems, as late as 1984, with a mighty harrumph ("his wilful wordage"). Instead, Riordan (editor of Poetry London), celebrates "Crane's extravagant poetry".

Extravagant is the right word: it implies the "least thrifty" expenditure of emotionality, rhetorical excess, verbal flourish, and syntactical exuberance that baroque modernists (often called neo-romantics) like Crane employed, and indeed, seem sometimes overwhelmed by. The Scottish critical tradition in the UK, in some senses determined by Adam Smith's lectures; and Wordsworth's puritanical desire for a language for all men, combined with Eliot's cautious avoidance of personality; and Leavis's and Orwell's qualms about the misuse of language - all the way down to the arguments for craft of today (Don Paterson has famously written off Dylan Thomas for his "florid operatics") establishes a zone of tolerance into which the work of extravagant poets like Crane may rarely sail.

And that is only the mainstream talking. There is even greater resistance to lyrical expression on the part of some British "late-modernists", for whom language, not the self, is the subject. This can sometimes maroon magnificent verbally excessive textuality such as Crane creates, on an isle of neglect. Hopefully, this new collection will woo more ecstatic lovers, than grim fighters. Language, can, does, and should, exceed rational limits.

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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