It seems to be universally held that Nick Clegg, beforehand something of the Invisible Man of British politics (in league with his henchman, Vince Cable, the self-styled Elephant Man, so an extraordinary leage of gents, then) has won, hands down, the first-ever leaders debate in a modern British election. Televised (that barbarous word!) and radio'd out to a vast audience of over ten million, it was almost as if three new Dr Whos were being rolled out. Gordon Brown started very badly, and never stopped being stiff and grimace-wracked, often smiling oddly - but his level tones, and fact-filled answers impressed; he knows the names of the helicopters everyone else wants more of. David Cameron (perhaps rattled by meeeting me) forgot to mention his Big Society - as if his manifesto had evaporated in the bright lights of the studio. Instead, he appeared normal enough, but not exactly over-impressive. Clegg, though, was positively Clintonian - using questioner's names, and playing the same record over and over - he is different. In fact, the three parties can be summed as follows. Clegg: Give Difference A Chance. Cameron: Hope Over Fear (wasn't that the pedo slogan from Donnie Darko?); and Brown: Ringfence the Police, Schools and NHS. It'd be great if the debates cascaded into real life and made a voting impact.
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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