There are many contenders for the British poetry book of 2011 - certainly, Roddy Lumsden's Terrific Melancholy is a runner-up - however, the collection I keep returning to, in my mind, is Clare Pollard's Changeling, from Bloodaxe. The poems are startling, formally inventive, the diction never less than astonishingly varied - it is a passionate, angry, moving, alarming, splendid book. Reading it inspired me to think of new things poetry could say and do; in this collection Pollard moves into the front rank of British poets.
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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Two more titles for my Christmas list which is growing rather long. I hope that Santa (aka Rusty) finds herself in a generous mood!
Best wishes from Simon