DEREK WALCOn, SEAMUS HEANEY, AND CHRISTOPHER LYDON
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SH:
Well there are two things I would want to say about it. First of
all, the suspicious thing first, which has nothing to do with Warren.
It's to do with the very institution, at this moment, this particular
moment of the imperial theme in America, of a poet laureateship.
It's as if the capitol is calling towards it everything that can furbish its
image. It's calling conscience towards it, and I would be suspicious
of the political motive of this. I don't think anyone person is sitting
in Washington planning to implicate the best intelligence in a cor–
rupt design. I'm not saying that. Just in some general way, that at
this particular moment of American power and profile in the world,
and this particular moment on Capitol Hill, a poet, that most an–
cient of law-givers, that most respected of words, should be kept a
very pure power within the
res publica.
Poets should be the alternative
government. The poetic intelligence of the country should be the
other
government. My suspicion is that this could be an unconcious
attempt to wrong-foot conscience in the other government . Having
said that,
I
think that American poets are eminently suited for poet
laureateship. Unlike English poetry, which has usually had an
ironical stance towards power, in American poetry, for example
Whitman's, there's a big tradition of the poet being the power, a big
tradition of visionary writing. One of the difficulties for an American
artist, poet, or novelist, one of the challenges, is to raise the breath
and project a vision that will include all America . So I think it's
natural enough that there should be an American poet laureate . Since
Whitman, the great founding father, wanted to be America . Of
course, there's another poetry, closer to the skeptical inward mode of
English writing which involves the refusal, to some extent , of public
vision . It's a different kind of art. But I do think that one tradition of
American poetry sponsors the impulse towards public poetry ,
towards the redemptive voice of conscience, as Derek says.
CL:
Would you each give us a taste of the Warren whom you admire?
DW:
Well, I'm not selecting an aspect of Warren that
I
admire, I'm
selecting a poem that I thought exemplified what I was saying in
terms of the clarity of his vision and its lyric width. And again, if you
substitute hawk and airplane, it is a vision from a height, of caribou
crossing. And the vision is from a very high distance above the cari–
bous crossing.
Caribou
Far, far southward, the forest is white, not merely
As snow of no blemish, but whiter than ice yet sharing
