Thread: Mason on Larkin
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Unread 04-14-2012, 03:25 PM
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Chris Childers Chris Childers is offline
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Great review. Here is the bit that struck me most:

Quote:
"I believe," he said in a 1964 interview, "that art which takes its origin in other art is less likely to be successful than art founded in unsorted experience."
I think this is true of Larkin's work, and moreover just true. Notice he doesn't say "art that makes use of other art," he says "takes its origin." He's talking about the kernel of the poem, not its means of realization. His statement can be true, and it can also be false that the true teacher of the artist is life. Poetry, not life, teaches you to write poetry; skill, knowledge, and reading are indispensable. But what are you going to apply that skill to, and what's your goal in doing so? Larkin implies that poems with urgency derive from genuinely urgent matters, that writing is a process of sorting-out "unsorted experience." Wilbur has said something similar, that he wrote poems to organize his experience after the war. For both poets technique is a means and not an end in itself. The goal is discovery, not display. Hopefully someday I'll start writing poems again and I can let this statement guide me back.

Chris
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