The ongoing odyssey of incompetence and arrogance at the top of BP has become incredible to behold. And a reminder of how "big people" just don't give a brass darn about the small people of the world. It explains a lot about British establishment culture - explains how Blair can swagger about after Iraq, and why, no matter what anyone says or does, the upper elites get away with virtual murder. Tony Hayward should be the most hated man in Britain, not just America - his insouciance is appalling. But then again, this is the nation that accepts nil-nil results from its playboy players. What went wrong? Why no revolution? And now, wait for the budget on Tuesday. More small people about to bear the brunt.
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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