In stark contrast to our number one, Quaye's joyous paen to internal sunshine of the mind, in the summer, and in the autumn - indeed, celebration of being forever sun-kissed, and real-kissed - is one of the most upbeat love songs I have ever heard. It's hard not to imagine being lifted up by it. This will turn some off. But for the rest of us, who live through many a dull cold and rainy London day (such as this one), we'll take Quaye any day - and we should add, Quaye has written of this subject before, and may again - which is fine with Eyewear.
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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