It surely must be a footnote to history: even as Lord Bingham, formerly Britain's top legal mind, considers the war on Iraq illegal, poetry critics like Tim Kendall argue that the 2003 opposition to the war, by British poets, was merely fashionable, likely futile, probably aesthetically nugatory, and, finally, ultimately hypocritical, even self-serving. While America has elected an anti-Iraq war president, Britain, with its limited democracy, resists any public inquiry into the mess; and, its most conservative literary types oppose even the slightest hint of literature becoming embedded with the biggest political issue of our time. Why is this?
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....
Comments
Of course the election of Obama extends beyond the symbolic, but are you suggesting that the US has anything more than limited democracy?
I also think it's unfair to claim that Tim is repelled by political engagement from poets - after all, he has written a well-received book on the subject in which your anthology is in the minority of situations of political engagement and protest which he seems to dislike.
And, what's more, it's wrong to make judgements on someone's political colouring on the basis of a personal disagreement. Tim may be a 'literary conservative' but I've no reason to think he is a political one or a supporter of the Iraq war. Unless you know better?
Has he? Any evidence other than the chapter of the book already mentioned?
Me defending Tim K! Can't think who should be more horrified - me or him!