What is the song of the summer as of today, the hottest and sunniest day this year in Ireland or Britain? Well, Eyewear isn't about to name check some cool indie band, or American folk trio, or other retro throwback (80s, 60s, 70s, anyone?). No, it's by B.o.B. ft. Bruno Mars and it is called 'Nothin' On You' and it is an effortlessly lovely and catchy love song with teeth, featuring rap and a yearning performance as sweet as mid-career Michael Jackson. Try to get this one out of your bean this June-August. You can swim on this song. Meanwhile, Gabriella Cilmi's 'Hearts Don't Lie' is also a hum-dinger if a little Gloria Gaynor.
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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