The Edge Of The Map Of Love

Posters are all over London, featuring two beautiful young starlets, for the new movie The Edge Of Love, opening in Britain on the 20th of June. Nowhere do the posters suggest that the protagonist, and main theme of the film, is Dylan Thomas. At some point, Eyewear will want to review the film. For now, what's telling is how the people behind the marketing campaign (probably grosser versions of mediocre Lee McQueen) thought it best to hide, rather than share, the poetry at the heart of this romantic biopic.

Ironically, Dylan Thomas may (just barely) be one of the only modern poets the average cinemagoer can still name. And, his life of apparent drink and erotic encounters (or erotic encounters with drink), is hardly of zero interest in the time and place of Amy Winheouse et al. Anyway, this marks another low point in poetry's intersection with mass culture. The fact that a key element of the film, the poet's attempt to get the law to punish a drunken accidental gunman, has been "dramatised" (in "real life" Thomas was sympathetic to the man) hardly fills one with much hope. It seems like a missed opportunity, concocting false drama in the life of a larger-than-life cultural figure, who, from the sounds of it, experienced more than enough real drama for several people.

Speaking of McQueen, The Apprentice is a show trial for all that is wrong with contemporary Britain. Each time Alan Sugar had the chance to reward creativity (as in the tissues advert) or style, he opted for the lowest common denominator (and usually a man). It's particularly unfortunate that a self-confessed liar and CV-cheat should be rewarded so publicly. What signals does this send to our children, etc? No truth in film or advertising! What is the world coming too?! Sigh.

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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

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"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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