I'm going to write through this tempest because I feel it has legs it has yet to discover, or until someone makes me leg it out of town. But I've been thinking the charismatic is a clinical narcist who excels mostly at choosing the words that please the most people. Creeping obsequiousness is a low-grade manifestation of this affliction. The implication is that likability and collegiality should be avoided like the plague, especially in poetry circles.
Forget about reading tea leaves and all that Jeane Dixon stuff. A prophet, in the Old Testament sense, was like a negatively-charged ion. Every word that came out of his mouth was reflexively detested by the prevailing poetasters. It was precisely the right thing to say because it was precisely opposed to what everyone wanted to hear. Until he died of course. His sticks and stones thus retired, it became more fashionable to lionize him. But that's Keats' negative capabilities in a nutshell: diametric opposition, contrariness.
Maybe we should embargo all posts until they can be reviewed post-mortem? But then, how would we get to savor just how clever we are? And who would collect the awards?
|