Larkin' About On The Beach
Jul. 31st, 2022 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo I paid a quick visit to the Eastbourne Eco Festival in Princes Park, did a circuit of the stalls and got snagged by the one being run by The Eastbourne Poetry Cafe. They meet regularly and have guest poets and an open mic. Maybe I'll troll along in Septemeber. They had a big sheet of paper laid out on their table on which people were being invited to improvise verse. I contributed the first lines of the day- a piece of rhyming doggerel about the sea which I have no wish to call to mind so don't ask me to repeat it here. Also they were giving away pre-loved poetry books. I made a contribution and helped myself to a collected Larkin.
There are two Collected Larkins- both edited by Anthony Thwaite; the first contains every scrap of verse that survived him, the second has only the poems he chose to publish himself. Number one is a tome, number two a slim volume. It's the second I've got.
I've no doubt that Larkin is the greatest English poet of the second half of the 20th century. (Do people learn Ted Hughes by heart? Quite so. I rest my case.) I love him dearly but I don't like him- and if I stay in his company too long I find the miserabilism crepping into my system like fog. I hadn't looked at the juvenilia of The North Ship before. It doesn't have the individuality of the later work but is still fearsomely accomplished. The gloom is already fully present though tricked out in the ruffles and lace of the romantic revival of the 1940s. Lots of shadow, lots of moon...
I look Larkin down to the beach. There was a black headed gull standing on a concrete jetty level with the incoming waves. It tried to launch itself onto the water and the waves washed it straight back to its starting point. So it had a think and tried again. And again. And again. "Use your wings, you silly thing," I thought. Whereupon three young herring gulls wheeled down out of the sky going, "This is our jetty, so fuck off!" And it flew....
There are two Collected Larkins- both edited by Anthony Thwaite; the first contains every scrap of verse that survived him, the second has only the poems he chose to publish himself. Number one is a tome, number two a slim volume. It's the second I've got.
I've no doubt that Larkin is the greatest English poet of the second half of the 20th century. (Do people learn Ted Hughes by heart? Quite so. I rest my case.) I love him dearly but I don't like him- and if I stay in his company too long I find the miserabilism crepping into my system like fog. I hadn't looked at the juvenilia of The North Ship before. It doesn't have the individuality of the later work but is still fearsomely accomplished. The gloom is already fully present though tricked out in the ruffles and lace of the romantic revival of the 1940s. Lots of shadow, lots of moon...
I look Larkin down to the beach. There was a black headed gull standing on a concrete jetty level with the incoming waves. It tried to launch itself onto the water and the waves washed it straight back to its starting point. So it had a think and tried again. And again. And again. "Use your wings, you silly thing," I thought. Whereupon three young herring gulls wheeled down out of the sky going, "This is our jetty, so fuck off!" And it flew....
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Date: 2022-07-31 08:47 am (UTC)'North Ship' was written on Wellington railway station. Trufact!
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Date: 2022-07-31 01:21 pm (UTC)