Not mine, actually, but Michael Lawrence's. Lawrence is a fascinating, multi-talented painter, sculptor, and writer, based on the Greek island of Hydra, where he has his studio. Lawrence, widely collected by Hollywood types like Oliver Stone, was greatly influenced by his mother and father, who were, if not Hollywood royalty, then within the palace walls: his father was famous film noir actor Marc Lawrence, who often played memorable heavies; and his mother was novelist-screenwriter Fanya Foss. They moved to Italy in the 50s, and befriended many European and expat artists and actors there. Returned to LA as a teen, Michael went to high school with Jim Morrison, of The Doors. Lawrence's exuberant, joyous, playful, and colourful paintings, prints, sketches, and watercolours are inspired by Fellini, Tati, and in general represent a carnivalesque vision, referencing poetry, film, and other cultural signposts, as well as the sunny, sometimes erotic, lifestyle of the Greek islands. He is an artist worth getting to know. His book, My Voyage in Art, is a good intro to the man and his work.
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?
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