[Roger Slater]

Here is yet another mention of the line, along with mention of the lore that "tuck" was originally said by a radio announcer by way of censorship.

(I did a parody of the poem as well beginning "They raised me well, my mum and dad," which was printed with the results of Speccie 3140, but I didn't mention any sweetshop. I kept "coastal shelf" since I thought, and still think, it doesn't imply gloom but simply deepening.)

[Joe Crocker]

I asked Neil Astley of Bloodaxe books -- where Mitchell published his "This be the worst" -- whether he had any thoughts on the different versions. He was kind enough to send me the following

Dear Joe Crocker

I was interested to see where that version of the poem had been originally published. But I wouldn’t be in a position to pursue this question any further. Adrian was quite methodical when collecting poems for a new collection which had been previously published in magazines, and the versions he included in his book manuscripts were always the final versions as far as he was concerned. He did have a habit of revising poems after they had already been published in magazines or included in readings, and indeed he did “try out” poems at readings and saw that process as helping him with revisions. He also revised poems after book publication so that they sometimes appeared in slightly changed versions in later books. But he had no hand in the posthumous Come On Everybody, and in compiling that edition we had to draw upon texts of poems from their last published appearance.

Best wishes
Neil Astley

[Joe Crocker]

Finally putting this thread to bed. I had a phone call from Sasha Mitchell, Adrian's daughter and literary executor. She agreed with me that "It shines out like a sweetshop shelf" was a fine line, but speculated that a) as Adrian had a slight lisp, he may have found it too much of a tongue-twister to reliably perform live and b) that by keeping the original Larkin line ("It deepens like a coastal shelf") Adrian may have been emphasising that happiness as well as misery can deepen. She did say that he very often revised his poems.

I still prefer the sweetshop version though.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Thank you for the whole research undertaking, Joe. Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts -- these are a poet's friends. Nevertheless, where this tidbit of literary history is concerned, I'm grateful for your tenacious and far from irritable reaching after fact and reason.

(That "sweetshop shelf" lines really does shine -- a visual image with notes of flavor and mouth feel to engage two other senses.)

[Ann Drysdale]

Thank you, Joe.

[Rory Waterman]

Earlier this summer, I wrote an essay on Larkin's parodies and parapoems (Gavin Ewart's term for poems that follow the form and trajectory of another, but without parodic intent). There are loads of versions of this; some are great, and most are frightful, obvious, etc. Case in point: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/they-tuck-you-up. If you'd spent the past 50 years in a cork-lined room, I suspect you'd think Larkin's poem was parodying it.

[Joe Crocker]

Thanks for your support everyone.

Rory. Yes, it was the Spectator article last year that tickled my remembering of Mitchell's parody. And it was buying an anthology of his and not finding my favourite line that set me off.

I would love to have a look at your essay if it is available or attachable.

[Rory Waterman]

Hi Joe. It'll be in Yearbook of English Studies for this year, but I don't know when that is out. If there's a link, I'll share it with you.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Rory Waterman

parapoems (Gavin Ewart's term for poems that follow the form and trajectory of another, but without parodic intent).

Thanks for mentioning this. I've long felt that others and we (including me) have been using "parody" for lots of poems that don't mean to parody. But did Ewart need to invent a word? Why is "pastiche" (according to Merriam Webster, "a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work") do disused?

[Chris O'Carroll]

The new issue of Light is out, after a series of unfortunate delays, and some scoundrel appears to have contributed a Larkin parody in the form of a reworked Christmas carol. In this case the imitation aims to be not nicer than the original, but even nastier.

https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/chri...oll-summer-20/