My admiration for Lawrence grows and grows. When you read the complete poems, you find a lot of works that are really a sort of philosophy chopped up in lines, but the best poems, which is how we customarily judge our poets, are just magnificent—beautiful and true and utterly without cant.
Writers who admired Lawrence include W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin—no slouches there, either.
Rexroth's introduction to his selection of poems by Lawrence is also Rexroth at his best, and is well worth reading.
I have encountered a lot of snobbish rejection of Lawrence from people who have not read him at length—usually people steeped in New Critical ideals, and the same people who dismiss Jeffers.
But certain great poets—Blake, Lawrence, Jeffers—need to be read differently than certain prim perfectionists. They demand a different kind of reading. It seems to me they require a deeper sort of reading.
Dave
|