The Times has a good editorial today questioning the symbolic and practical value of the Tory-led government selling off the nation's trees. I have to say, if this goes ahead, it will have one (unintended) positive result - it will render the Coalition unelectable in future. Such a tone-deaf, myopic and small-minded bit of Gradgrindery is tantamount to the Sheriff of Nottingham's "cancel Christmas!" - but even he didn't strip Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.
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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The ConDem coalition has already taken some truly appalling decisions, but in my opinion this is probably the worst. So much for their 'green' credentials. With any luck it will be their poll-tax moment and the straw that ultimately breaks their back.
Best wishes from Simon
- <3 Famous Poetry about life