A dozen or so of the talented poets studying on the Creative Writing MA at Kingston University will be reading from their debut pamphlet, being launched that evening. They will be joined by Kingston Creative Writing lecturers Jane Yeh, Paul Perry and Todd Swift, who will also be reading their work. Monday, April 23, 79 pm. Admission Free. Oxfam Books & Music. 91 Marylebone High Street. London W1, near Baker street tube.
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
Good luck with the reading. I hope that it goes well.
Best wishes from Simon