The Problem with Poets

Poets: Nosey, Needy, and Daft

I can’t speak for other nationalities, but as far as the English go, I hold with George Orwell, who said:

“The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker.”

And that brings me to poets. Who do they think they are, sticking their beaks where they’re not wanted?

What is it with these poets and their demands? When they’re not poking their noses into other people’s business, they’re making tiresome demands for answers and information. What is their problem? Don’t they know how to Google?

And if they’re tech-averse or from another era, are they so addled on their own supply they can’t toddle down to the library and look it up in a book?

Poets and Poetry? No Thank You.

I mean, just listen to the sort of inanities they ask.

First up: Berthold Brecht.

And what did the soldier’s wife receive
From the ancient capital, Prague?

Is that any business of his? And anyway, he knows the answer (high-heeled shoes allegedly), so why is he wasting everyone’s time? And then he goes around the world asking the same question over and over again. Doesn’t he have anything better to do?

Then there are the botanical questions.
Poet James Schuyler takes a wander in the woods in October and, of course, he has to ask a damn question:

And is it stamina
that unseasonably freaks
forth a bluet, a
Quaker lady, by
the lake?

I mean, how does he expect mere readers of verse to answer that? We are not his personal botany resource. And anyway, the perversity of flowering plants is not a fit subject for poetry. Flowers do what flowers do.

Then there are the self-aggrandising types who think they can address questions to the entire male population of England – or at least the agricultural labourers and cloth workers:

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat – nay, drink your blood?

Maybe it never occurred to Shelley that the English working class rather enjoy working for vampires – and that it’s none of his business. Typical posh boy stirring up trouble. He should bugger off to the Continent where they like such nonsense, and leave ordinary working folk alone.

And oh, such big thoughts they have.

I mean – take history and the Battle of Waterloo and the great victory of Eton over Napoleon – and all this old Harrow boy Lord Byron can do is sneer:

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit
And foam in fetters; – but is Earth more free?

What does that spoilt playboy know about freedom?

Where is his patriotism? Why is he siding with the French?
Good job he shuffled off to Greece.

Lazy, idle good-for-nothings, the lot of them.

Look at this Philip Larkin chap. I assume this is some kind of metaphor and he was not actually sat upon by toads in the library in Hull. But didn’t he have books to shelve instead of thinking up daft questions?

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?

And then there’s this fellow T.S.Eliot who wants advice on personal grooming:

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I mean, really. Get a grip, poets. But he goes on. There’s more:

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

FFS – just tell the truth. No need to make up fancy bits about chimney pots and mermaids and whatnot. I mean, really. What is the matter with them?

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Bloody right there will be. At this rate – with all your personal needs – we’ll be in the middle of next week before you’ve stirred your morning coffee.

And don’t you dare point out that they’re making no sense. They just get all defensive and come back with more questions, like it’s some rhetorical exercise in Jewish theology.

Look no further than Walt Whitman:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.

Clearly he has no shame. And appears to be suffering from some psychotic episode involving multiple personalities. Or even worse, obesity and cannibalism. 

And this is what happens when you let poets run amok – they start talking to each other across the ages. Next thing you know, we’ve got this befuddled so-called poet Ginsberg asking Whitman for advice in – a supermarket of all places:

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Where do we go?

I mean, really.

Just do your shopping like a normal person.

Well – it was California. Perhaps that explains it.

And talk about misplaced priorities! Read this and weep:

OK, so she got back the baby – 
but what happened to the record player?

I swear to you it’s real. I read it in some collection of so-called poetry, but didn’t note the name of the so-called poet. Help me out if you can, so we can expose this monster for what he – or she – is. But I think it’s a he, based on my memory.

So if anyone can name this heartless beast, you can have a free subscription to my blog for a full five years, and my thanks- and the thanks of decent-thinking people everywhere.

To end this episode of Poets Are Daft, here’s a gem from  Alfred, Lord Tennyson no less. You’d think a good Victorian gent would show some gravitas. But no.

He has King Arthur dying and asking Sir Bedivere to chuck Excalibur in the lake. But Bedivere can’t bear to do it, so he lies about it – twice. Arthur knows, of course, because he knows the secret of the sword.

Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?

That’s how they spoke back then apparently. So in addition to the challenge, I’ll just show you this – from Monty Python and the Holy Grail – to demonstrate that 

“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!”