As someone who had three grandparents with Scottish roots (one was a Fraser, the other a Hume, and the third, my paternal grandmother, was born in Motherwell), I am a British-Canadian with 75% Scottish ancestry (the last fourth is English - my paternal grandfather Stanley was a Cockney born in London) - so I feel some interest in the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. I was opposed to Quebec separation, for the same reasons I am in favour of Scottish secession - history. Quebec, although colonised by the French over 450 years ago, was soon after defeated by the British; but ultimately belongs to the native Canadians who had lived there for tens of thousands of years, and still do in great numbers; the Crown promised these peoples their lands in perpetuity as they agreed to become Canadian. In Scotland, the indigenous peoples are the Scottish themselves, and, while there are complex reasons for the entanglement of the destinies of Scotland and England, it is a cultural, social and political entity with clearly defined borders and history, that could very easily function as a player on the world stage as a legal separate country - Scotland is already a nation. The ugly run of threats and doom-mongering of the last few weeks from bankers, businessmen, and the Prime Minister should be all the reason the Scottish voter needs to vote against staying yoked to an oppressive English upper-class power structure. Anyone with a heart and soul and pride knows it is better to be free and a little poorer, than have a bit of money in your pocket, but be on your knees. The great song by The Proclaimers, "cap in hand", should be the message. The Scottish are practical, and they invented capitalism, but they are also a nation of poets, actors, musicians, workers, farmers, artists, and comedians - why should they dance to the bean-counter's tune? Getting your country back comes with a price. This price is worth paying. Over time, Scotland independent would rise and become a great nation - perhaps small geographically, but a big country in spirit.
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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