Elite like an NFL Quarterback

Sweet couch.

The Oxford something or other interviews the great and powerful Oz! the English language's finest living poet, Geoffrey Hill. Here is a snippet:

You have famously defended the right of art to be ‘difficult’: would you therefore defend the right of poetry to be elitist?

We have to define what we mean by elitist: considerable confusion will arise unless we can get clear in our heads what ‘elitist’ means. If ‘elitist’ means belonging to some threatened hierarchy of the intelligence then I think that the poet has an obligation to attune her poetry in that direction. There is a largely unknown order of human beings who believe in that impossible thing: intrinsic value. One must work as if intrinsic value were a reality, even though I myself know no way of demonstrating its real existence.