Kavanagh shares something in common with W.H. Davies, both from lowly
backgrounds, both self-educated, both capable of churning out simple,
lyrical verse that had an appeal to the ear but was not really
intellectually stimulating --both knew that they wrote some dreadful verse,
but both had to make a living from this kind of hack work, though Davies was
later on in life granted a Civil List pension --he continued to write far
too much according to critics. I remember being in a bookshop in Hereford
and encountering a retired Welsh miner who was reading some poetry. During a
brief conversation he recited some of Davies' poetry. Of course "Leisure":
What is this life, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?--
and some others. That episode made me want to read more about Davies and his
verse. I managed to get a first edition of his autobiographical fiction of
his time in Wales --and again an incident that is remarkable --was the scene
in which children threw stones at Davies while he was on the "tramp". I
doubt if their lives can redeem their verse, but when I read Kavanagh and
Davies I think of the difference between the British reception of such
writers, and the equivalent in Spanish or Italian, where such writers are
held in high esteem and their poetry still regularly recited or sung.
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