As the whole world now knows, Greece is apparently going to have a referendum on whether it will accept an EU bail-out. This indecision has led to jittery markets. If Greece votes to default instead, they will leave the EU, the euro, and this tail-spin will likely destroy the currency, and pull the world into a full recession. Italy and Portugal may then collapse, more or less. Eyewear gives this doomsday scenario around a 50-50 chance of occurring. Meanwhile, the anti-capitalists of London continue to challenge the do-nothing theology of the C of E, which seems gutless in the face of genuine protest. However, such protest leads down the same dark road as Greece is currently on. The collapse of the banking system would lead to chaos, suffering, and even perhaps war or violence, on a scale not seen since the 1940s; and what or who would step in? China? I continue to predict 2011 as a watershed year, and more is to come.
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
The Greek Prime minister was insane to call a referendum. I actually think that he did it to spite Sarkozy who said publicly that Greece should never have been allowed to join the euro in the first place. As long as the French and Germans want the euro to survive, it will definitely do so, no matter how much right-wing commentators are willing it to fail!
Best wishes from Simon