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Unread 04-13-2012, 02:30 PM
David Mason David Mason is offline
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Default Mason on Larkin

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...philip++larkin
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  #2  
Unread 04-13-2012, 03:11 PM
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W.F. Lantry W.F. Lantry is offline
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Very cool. And deftly done! Congrats!
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Unread 04-13-2012, 03:15 PM
David Anthony David Anthony is offline
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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
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Unread 04-13-2012, 05:34 PM
David Mason David Mason is offline
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Thanks, friends. Yes, David, I love that one too. Really, there are so many poems of his I admire and love.

Dave
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Unread 04-13-2012, 06:02 PM
Richard Wakefield Richard Wakefield is offline
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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
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Unread 04-13-2012, 08:55 PM
David Mason David Mason is offline
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Richard,
You have heaped one kindness after another on my head. Thanks for this one too, and blessings to you and yours.

Dave
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Unread 04-14-2012, 01:31 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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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.
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