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. What do I mean by smart?
Sad news. Founder Pink Floyd member Richard Wright has died. Pink Floyd are, of course, one of the great bands of the 20th century.
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SEEING PINK FLOYD AT THE STUDENTS UNION BAR 13 FEBRUARY 1971 AS PART OF THEIR BRAIN DAMAGE TOUR
After playing in North America, Europe, and appearing
at the biggest clubs, halls and universities in Britain
I couldn't understand why they came to this Technical College
in Farnborough that could only sell 300 tickets.
I mean they were like royalty they were that big.
First I knew about them coming was when I saw
an “Eye of Argus” poster on the Students' notice board
advertising the time, date, price, and showing
The Mekon in front of a green sky hovering over
a wavy pink and black field where a dead tree grew.
I don't remember much about the night itself
apart from the smell of musk, the songs
Careful with That Axe, Eugene
and Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,
the bass line travelling through me like an earthquake,
the light show of shifting psychedelic patterns projected
behind the band of Gilmour, Wright, Waters and Mason,
and hearing these footsteps walking across the ceiling.
An hour after they finished I was by the side
of a dual carriageway when this huge black cat
ran in front of me then sat down to groom itself.
The eyes glowed wine red in the light and as it turned
there was more of a rainbow look to them.
It was very sleek looking and well muscled
with a long black tail wrapped around its body.
After a few minutes it leaped off into the dark
and never came back the same way that
the original Pink Floyd won't be coming back.