On Radio 4 this morning, there was a long feature on the world famous pianist Alfred Brendel, who turns 80 soon, and who has turned from playing concert piano to emphasising his role as poet, cemented by a new collection out any day now. Brendel has been published by Faber, and writes an odd sort of poem: free verse, mainly, with surreal or zany references to often musicological situations. His Mozart murder poem is a good example of where his ear takes him. I am not a classical music critic but accept Brendel's preeminence in that field. I wonder, would he be attended to as a poet otherwise? The UK has many equally (more?) deserving older poets of great achievement who could do with a spot on national morning radio, too. I raise this because in the piece he was asked whether he was a pianist or poet, and he had the modesty to say both. Glenn Gould, bless him, was a genius as an editor and radio man, but never let that get to his head. The title poet - for those who wish to take it - is always there, a hat on a high hat-stand we can all reach on tip toes - but those who claim the fedora should be careful it not slip off our too-big heads.
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
Looking around my bedroom, I see three of my own paintings. Surely that qualifies me for an exhibition at the Royal Academy!