Cally,
Don't worry, I feel no obligation to like him. I am grateful that my poetry education, from the start, has been utterly haphazard and idiosyncratic, leaving me with a fairly strong immunity to feeling obliged to like anything.
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Originally Posted by Cally Conan-Davies
Ah, darling David Ahh! I thought of you dearly yesterday as we drove through San Francisco, wishing I had time to call you, to talk.
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Another near miss! (Or near hit, depending on how you look at it.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cally Conan-Davies
I don't ask that you like him. But in a list like this, to leave Lawrence out would be a travesty. He is a MEGALITH of the 20th century, whether any of us like it or not.
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Pound and Eliot are "megaliths" too, but I don't care much for either.
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Originally Posted by Cally Conan-Davies
Let me quote you a moment from Kenneth Rexroth's introduction to Lawrence's Selected:
"Hardy was a major poet. Lawrence was a minor prophet. Like Blake and Yeats, his is the greater tradition."
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I like Rexroth as a critic and commentator, more so than as a poet or translator, but I
love Hardy. I also love Blake, but I can take or leave Yeats. So I am not sure what to make of this quote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cally Conan-Davies
No-one has to like him. But no-one should spit on him. His place in our literature, and the venom and condescension he inspires continue to astound me.
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No spitting or venom here. What I have read so far simply hasn't moved me. But, I'll give him another day in court.
David R.