The BBC Radio 4 Today Programme today revealed a rather lax attitude towards poetry. The reporter describing what the Oxford Professor of Poetry post entails described it, chuckling, as "a pretty good gig" - with a stipend and "only" having to "do" a few lectures. This belittles one of the more arduous, intellectually demanding, and serious lecture series in the world devoted to poetry - perhaps the most serious. Muldoon's and Heaney's contributions, to name only two, are among their best critical writing and speaking. Anyway. They then interviewed Paula Claire, who I admit Eyewear belittled when she entered the race - a fact I regret now. When Claire explained why she had dropped out - for being described by the Oxford online authorities running the election as a "performer" and not a poet, the BBC radio chap chuckled (a lot of chuckling) and said it didn't seem "a big deal". Claire rightly observed that in the UK, to be called a performer not a poet is a way of sometimes undercutting the value of the work. Finally, as the spot ended, they said they hoped Michael Horovitz would win, so he could play his "anglosaxophone". Which is a fine sentiment, but rather biased. Equal time for Hill?
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. What do I mean by smart?
Comments
To be honest I thought that Paula Claire came across as a typically paranoid poet. I was going to vote in this election but since I'm blithely indifferent to the outcome, I don't think I'll bother.
Best wishes from Simon