Eyewear is tired of the sad and vindictive people out there in the blogosphere who think it makes sense to bravely stand up for themselves, anonymously, and insult me for taking a public stand. The chief problem with the world of poetry (all worlds?) is transparency - there isn't enough of it. I stand by my (admittedly evolving, like Obama) views. Nor do the contributors to this blog ever need to share these views. I find it pitiful to be receiving very personal, nasty attacks, often daily. I am a liberal Catholic capitalist - get over it. I could pretend otherwise, but as the owner of a small business who regularly attends Mass, but is open to freedom of speech and votes for the Lib Dems - none of which ashames me - it would be madness to claim otherwise. None of these views is without fault - show me which ideology, or belief, is flawless. However, if I prefer not to roar approval of a victory for socialism in Greece and France which threatens the Merkel consensus for Europe, so be it. I hope I am proved wrong. But we are in debt, folks - badly in debt. Borrowing much more is not, to my mind, fiscally wise - but then again I am a fiscal conservative. Anyway, all this to say - I have blocked anonymous comments from this blog for now. Dare to name yourself, if you wish to make a point.
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
Simon Turner @ Gists and Piths
I myself am a cynical, socialist protestant but to quote Voltaire, 'I do not agree with a single word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to speak!'
Best wishes from Simon