[Richard Epstein]

Auden said what many poets, including me, feel about Hardy--

My first Master was Thomas Hardy, and I think I was very lucky in my choice. He was a good poet, perhaps a great one, but not too good. Much as I loved him, even I could see that his diction was often clumsy and forced and that a lot of his poems were plain bad. This gave me hope where a flawless poet might have made me despair…his metrical variety, his fondness for complicated stanza forms, were an invaluable training in the craft of making. I am also thankful that my first Master did not write in free verse for I might then have been tempted to believe that free verse is easier to write than stricter forms, whereas I now know it is infinitely more difficult."

(It's a long thread. If someone's already quoted this, and I missed it, my apologies.)

RHE

[Sylvester Wager]

I self-studied poetry, especially meter, and it is easy to forget that way.
In my age, in my experience, formal poetry did not draw many crowds. I was born in '63 and went to common schools.
I liked the Hardy poems, two I read, here. For that, I thank the poster. The comments were interesting - a little edgy to bitchy. Like my discipline, classical music, people get a little too excited about unsupervised variation.
If Hardy was in a light vein, he'd write more freely. Wouldn't we all? Perhaps he tipped his hat to tradition, and then substituted as he pleased. And triplets were not fobidden.
- Just a heathen's nearly worthless opinion. I came for the Hardy.
peace

[Tim Murphy]

My publisher and I and Janet Kenny, have been discussing yesterday's 60th birthday of Tim in the context of Hardy's first book. Thought I'd bump this thread:

I got a cute birthday message from a friend, about to celebrate her 75th, in Australia: "Timmy, think of Hardy! At sixty he was just getting started." The Times reviewed his first collection that year: "Mr. Hardy should spare himself embarrassment and confine himself to the novel." A growing number of good poets now regard him as the greatest lyric poet in English, and why? Not for his seamless meters or contemporary diction, God knows. It's for his earthiness, his profound empathy for the people of his countryside. Mr. Warren insisted I pay closer attention to him than anyone, and my father said the same. It took a long time for me to grow my way into a full comprehension of Hardy and Frost, whose virtues are shared virtues. I just wasn't ready until I lost my ass farming.

[Roger Slater]

What are the shared virtues of Hardy and Frost, Tim? I took to Frost with no effort at all, yet it took quite a while for me to appreciate Hardy, and even now my appreciation is restricted to probably dozen poems (but those dozen are doozies).

Oh, and happy birthday!

[Maryann Corbett]

I probably posted to this thread years ago about how much I love "Afterwards." Is it one of your doozies, Roger?

Here's a reading by Jeremy Irons, with piano accompaniment.

And a slightly belated happy birthday to Tim (who is still younger than I am by a few months. )

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

And a slightly belated happy birthday to Tim (who is still younger than I am by a few months. )

Yes, by all means: Happy Birthday, Tim! May your next decade be even more productive than the last!

Thanks,

Bill

[Gail White]

Rhina is my role model for success after 60.
Tim, you can be another one.

Here's my birthday message for you:

A ROLLING STONE GATHERS WISDOM

When I was five-and-thirty,
I thought that I was old,
My waist no longer sylph-like,
My hair no longer gold.
‘Twas useless to console me.
Or offer me champagne,
For I was five-and-thirty,
And death was on my brain.

When I was five-and-forty,
My heart was full of fears.
When I was five-and-fifty,
I would not count the years.
But there’ve been subtle changes
In Nature’s paradigm—
Now I am five-and-sixty,
And I’ve got lots of time.

[Roger Slater]

That's more cheerful a poem for Tim than this one by Hardy:

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, ‘Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!’

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

[Tim Murphy]

Bob Mezey did a great Selected Hardy for Penguin, the best I've seen, about 150 poems. That's where I discovered Proud Songsters, and I think the bestids let it go out of print! Roger, I think the shared virtues are earthiness and profound empathy for the people of their respective countrysides. I believe Hardy was a profound influence on Frost, Ransom, and Robinson here, and on Auden and Larkin Over There. And that is a measure of his greatness. Gail, that's hysterical in a very sad way. Here is my birthday poem. Not very Hardyesque:

Turning Sixty

I turned sixteen not very long ago
and thought "Ski!" when I shoveled heavy snow.

[Jerome Betts]

A SHEEP FAIR

THE day arrives of the autumn fair,
And torrents fall,
Though sheep in throngs are gathered there,
Ten thousand all,
Sodden, with hurdles round them reared:
And, lot by lot, the pens are cleared,
And the auctioneer wrings out his beard,
And wipes his book, bedrenched and smeared,
And rakes the rain from his face with the edge of his hand,
As torrents fall.

The wool of the ewes is like a sponge
With the daylong rain:
Jammed tight, to turn, or lie, or lunge,
They strive in vain.
Their horns are soft as finger-nails,
Their shepherds reek against the rails,
The tied dogs soak with tucked-in tails,
The buyers' hat-brims fill like pails,
Which spill small cascades when they shift their stand
In the daylong rain.

POSTSCRIPT

Time has trailed lengthily since met
At Pummery Fair
Those panting thousands in their wet
And woolly wear:
And every flock long since has bled,
And all the dripping buyers have sped,
And the hoarse auctioneer is dead,
Who “Going—going!” so often said,
As he consigned to doom each meek, mewed band
At Pummery Fair.