Poets and Politics

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Poets and Politics


Ezra Pound denounced the ‘tawdry cheapness’ of his day;
The ‘old lies and new infamy’ and ‘liars in public places.’
He was right. But I wouldn’t mark him very high as prescient.
He backed Mussolini and we all know how that went.

Larkin damned the slumming of England’s landscape by the poor.
Led so he said, by ‘a cast of crooks and tarts.’ Yet he worshipped
The ground that Mrs Thatcher walked-on.  So it couldn’t refer
To her. All Souls pals were exempted too. Just a snob? Oh dear!

Does this mean that poets are as bad as politicians?
Not really, though you do need to pick them with care.
Stick with what they do best: the creation of beauty
And ignore the nonsense that they talk when off-duty.

Though it does put you on your guard when leaders quote 
Their favourite and get it wrong. It took a Dutchman
To correct Johnson and underline that what Tennyson wrote 
Was ‘do and die’. We shall charge our valley of death quite soon.