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  #11  
Unread 04-04-2021, 12:39 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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It was one of my earliest encounters with Larkin, Martin. I was still in school I think. Yeah, I like it a lot too. It's in your face rude and all that, and appropriately so, imo, but what really attracted me was its absolute starkness. I wouldn't argue it's his best, but it was my introduction to him and enough for me to want to read more.
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  #12  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:01 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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James, I just ordered a used paperback copy of Larkin's The Complete Poems. I've read a pretty good number of his more well-known poems, but I'm looking forward to this book.
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  #13  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:15 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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I should do the same and read him again. High Windows was the last I read of him, some time ago. But he's stuck to me anyway. A beautiful stain of influence.

Last edited by James Brancheau; 04-04-2021 at 01:18 PM.
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  #14  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:26 PM
David Callin David Callin is offline
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I first read him when I was 18. This was pretty much my first encounter with him ... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe.../faith-healing

I went through the Collected Poems again recently. Striking to see him quoted - at length - in the final episode of Devs.

Last edited by David Callin; 04-04-2021 at 01:28 PM.
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  #15  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:29 PM
conny conny is offline
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Setting back poetry 80 years?... lol. I think not.
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  #16  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:36 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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Thank you, David. The last stanza is immense.
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  #17  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:44 PM
David Callin David Callin is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James Brancheau View Post
Thank you, David. The last stanza is immense.
That's what I thought on first reading, James! I still think that. I'm glad you do too.

Two other longtime favourites, which I think resonate in the same way, you'll know already, I'm sure: At Grass and MCMXIV.

These are prime Larkin. What will survive of him is these - among others.
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  #18  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:45 PM
W T Clark W T Clark is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by conny View Post
Setting back poetry 80 years?... lol. I think not.

Hello conny, I think so. We had Eliot's modernism and the reavaluation of language, the opening it up to experiment and complexity, and then we had Larkin, anti-modernist, with very little experimentation in either language or politics, kicking Dylan and Graham off the shelves (okay I'm speaking of the Movement which he was a part of) and replacing it with the type of no-nonsense, stiff-upper lip verse that the modernists had done everything to overcome. For them language was a means and an ends; for Larkin it was just a means. And a pretty boring one at that.
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  #19  
Unread 04-04-2021, 01:57 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Quote:
no-nonsense, stiff-upper lip verse
I don't think you've read Larkin, Cameron. Not really.
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  #20  
Unread 04-04-2021, 02:02 PM
conny conny is offline
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Nah. Some people despise him, for various obvious reasons, but boring
is not a word that applies. I get that some people might try and put the
boot in every now and again, but he’s Teflon. Things just slide off without
sticking. That’s how I know how good he is/was. Betjeman said he was the
John Clare of the council estates, which I think is about right.
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