Larkinesque

[poliphilo]

I don't really enjoy going round in my pyjamas all day; I find it dispiriting and disempowering, so this morning I got dressed, though I didn't have to and- because I was dressed- I've got some housework done- shifting furniture and bags of dirty washing out of our bedroom in advance of the workmen- and cleaning the bathroom floor and walls of splashes of dried plaster. My father-in-law is still in hospital. He may have had a minor heart attack. The ward sister has said she won't let him out until he's fixed because she doesn't want him back.  I assume she said it with a smile. I've just been listening to David Walliams and Andrew Motion discussing Larkin on Radio 4. Motion said he thinks Larkin chose a life that would serve his poetry. Most people who make that sort of choice choose travel and adventure, but in Larkin's case it was the drab and everyday he needed. 

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Motion said he thinks Larkin chose a life that would serve his poetry. Most people who make that sort of choice choose travel and adventure, but in Larkin's case it was the drab and everyday he needed.

Maybe - but that's as unresolvable as most such chicken-and-egg questions. I suspect it would be truer to say that he needed the drab and everyday because of who he was, not because he'd realised that that's where his poetic talents lay. Not to say he didn't realise, but even after he stopped writing poems in any number he showed no signs of running down to London to enjoy the high life.

Thanks for reminding me about this programme. I heard the trailer, but forgot to listen. I will do so "again".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It was good to hear the poems being read. Motion and Walliams were talking about what an affirmative poet Larkin is- in spite of his reputation.