The excitement and fuss over the announcement that the "Lost Booker" (from 1970) went to Troubles, by the tragically drowned writer JG Farrell, cannot hide a sense of let-down. After all, Troubles is not a lost masterpiece, and Farrell is widely-read and respected. There is not much clever in deciding to Booker this classic. It feels the safe and obvious choice. The opportunity was squandered to do something exciting and even daring with this alternative prize - to award another JG instead - JG Ballard. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition is probably his major work, and is still a shocking and innovative text. Given Ballard's recent death, and the growing sense of his importance, it is surprising that the mainstream view of his writing is still seemingly a tad belittling.
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
I hadn't heard of the 'lost booker' before this. Will go and read more about it!
Jess.