Eyewear is looking forward to the new Arc press collection from James Byrne, Blood/Sugar. Byrne is one of the best of the younger British poets and also an important editor and organiser; he currently spends much time in NYC. Also out with a book soon is James Brookes whose pamphlet will be available before Christmas; Brookes won an Eric Gregory this year and is Hill-like in his qualities. More on that pamphlet later. Both young men were filmed for the Oxfam DVD project, also out at year's end.
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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Will keep an eyeball peeled for them both.
Are you feeling any better?
Best wishes from Simon & Rusty