Mason on Larkin
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Very cool. And deftly done! Congrats!
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That's a very fine review, David.
Speaking as a native of Hull it bothers me that Larkin has not had the recognition he deserves in America; though truth to tell he hasn't had that recognition in Hull either, until very recently. I think Larkin was a fine judge of his own work and published not a lot because he only wanted to publish his best. Here's one of his that breaks my heart every time I read it: Cut Grass Cut grass lies frail: Brief is the breath Mown stalks exhale. Long, long the death It dies in the white hours Of young-leafed June With chestnut flowers, With hedges snowlike strewn, White lilac bowed, Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace, And that high-builded cloud Moving at summer's pace. Best, David |
Thanks, friends. Yes, David, I love that one too. Really, there are so many poems of his I admire and love.
Dave |
Dave --
At some point a great writer's discards become the raw material for someone to construct an academic career -- witness the new edition of Mark Twain's autobiography, a heap of shards and fragments and dry commentary that almost buries the bit of engaging narrative. At the same time, I like it. Sometimes a bit of insight into a writer's greater works can be had through his lesser, and sometimes those dry commentaries really do help. For my money, though, the best few words on Larkin -- maybe on any great poetry -- as these, from your review: "a protest against the limits of life." That description makes volumes and notes and analysis redundant. Richard |
Richard,
You have heaped one kindness after another on my head. Thanks for this one too, and blessings to you and yours. Dave |
Nice work David and most elegantly put. I think here in England it is generally accepted that he is the greatest of our poets since the War, or since Auden, if you like. And how many poets in the whole history or our art have written fifty poems we couldn't do without.
He was unfortunate in his biographer. We need another biography now, partly because we know more. And, though he was certainly a Tory, like Eliot, Yeats, Betjeman and the later Auden, it is difficult to argue he was a snob, if by that you mean he liked to cultivate upper class people. |
Excellent review, Dave. And a great opening and a great closing sentence. I remember the wonderful recitation you gave of 'Whitsun Weddings' att West Chester a few years back.
He wrote some of the greatest short poems in the language. There's the one David has posted. And there's this, perhaps my favourite spring poem: The trees are coming into leaf like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. |
"Its very artfulness consoles." Well put. The art and courage of "Aubade" in particular I find very consoling.
"Two Guitar Pieces" appears in the '88 Collected. |
Yes, John, snob would not be the right word for the way people responded to his Tory views. What would the right word be, I wonder? And Gregory, I love your point about short poems. Here's another I love:
Water If I were called in To construct a religion I should make use of water. Going to church Would entail a fording To dry, different clothes; My liturgy would employ Images of sousing, A furious devout drench, And I should raise in the east A glass of water Where any-angled light Would congregate endlessly. He actually wrote a rather large number of poems I would not want to be without. I go back to him very often. Max, I wrote without all of my books at hand and may have goofed about "Two Guitar Pieces." Maybe it's a symptom of how confusing the new book is! Thanks, friends. Dave |
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