Change has come to America, has come to the world. In a moment that feels vastly unfamiliar, because good happens less often in history than wickedness, a truly good man has won office as most powerful person in the world, lifted by true purpose, the idealism of millions, and the love of countless others across the globe. As if Kennedy and King were one, the best of American virtue and intelligence and energy has been fused. The word historic has been cheapened, but this is a truly historic moment. I am so glad to be alive to have witnessed the win of Barack Obama.
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....
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