What is the Role of Intelligence in Poetry?

A few days ago, I got a letter from a publisher, a publisher I respect and like, one of those contest letters about all the manuscripts they received this year, what they thought of them, yadda yadda.

I had a hard time getting past a line or two in the middle of the two page letter about intelligence in poetry. “As for intelligence-of course we assume that a poet is intelligent. And she should be. If not, no hope for anything beyong intelligence. But the person we really want to be intelligent is our doctor. More and more we’d rather our poetry impress us with an eye and heart that sees recognizable human beings, and gives them to us…”

I sat back baffled. I thought, “The person we really want to be intelligent is our doctor?” Well, no doubt. But isn’t the reason, I mean, one of the very main reasons, we read literature is to be intellectually stimulated? Is it all about feelings and mushy stuff in poetry? In fact, I was just reading one of this particular publisher’s book, a difficult book with a shattered narrative and many embedded clues to different pop culture references. It was not an easy, emotional, accessible book, and one of the reasons I liked it is because it challenged my mind. I guess I might be a “head” poet rather than a “heart” poet. I like putting science and mythology in poems, and I like reading poems about things I don’t already know. I don’t play Sudoku, instead, I like to read poems that don’t necessarily make themselves clear to me the first time around. It made me think about publishing, about poetry, about priorities. What are your poetry priorities? Do you demand that your poets be at least as intelligent as your doctor? Because I think that would be ideal.

I never think about things like references to science or folk tales being offputting to people. But I guess I should. I like poets who aren’t afraid to talk about difficult subject matter in difficult ways; this isn’t about avant–garde or quietism or whatever, it’s about demanding something from the reader, and providing something for the reader they didn’t have before. It’s about not talking down to an audience. It’s about expecting a poet to know things about the world, beyond just poetry, beyond just themselves and their feelings.

What do you think? What should the role of intelligence be in poetry?