Edward Snowden is in all likelihood one of the greatest Americans of all time, in terms of bravery, principled action, and impact. Rather than vilifying him, President Obama - more than ever a Bushlite character - should be pardoning him and making him a national hero. One day there may be a Snowden statue in Washington. Snowden, unless his story proves a false cover, gave up a life of relative luxury as a spy in Hawaii, on a big salary, to potentially die or be imprisoned for life, simply to express - as is his American right - the need for human freedom, and for the US government to stop their Big Brotherish invasion. Or, perhaps you see him as an enemy, aiding those who would attack America? Perhaps he is that complex thing, like Socrates before him - the gadfly destined to be executed by the state, yet indispensable even in his most painful revelations and questioning of democracy. Either way, Eyewear opens up its pages to POETS FOR SNOWDEN. 10 years after 100 POETS AGAINST THE WAR, it is time for POETS FOR SNOWDEN. If you send them in, I will post them. Include name please and bio - don't worry, the NSA already know who you are anyway.
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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