It was sort of int'resting and pretty dull, though Nietzsche is a gas
it wasn't cool and plain wrong about Ezra who was a sorry fool at last
whom I at least identify with though most of his sins are not mine
but I sure as hell know was no simpleton in whatever respect you mean
Mark Weiss wrote:
> A better question might be "can I really read another word of anything
> so boring?"
>
> Mark
>
>
> At 05:43 PM 1/17/2005, you wrote:
>
>> Interesting essay on Larkin and the morality of poets at Poetry
>> Daily. Not
>> sure if I agree with some of his contentions - "we, the wise and
>> tolerant
>> poetry reading audience", say, begs a few questions, though it must
>> be at
>> least partly ironic - but provoking all the same on a few old
>> chestnuts -
>> especially on the gender questions at the end. Reminds me that I once
>> started a female version of Notes From Underground.
>>
>> "When Larkin¹s defenders and detractors find themselves debating
>> whether the
>> poet can speak ³for us² � whether he is, in essence, ³normal² � they¹re
>> acting out a script written by the poet himself, who all along has
>> been less
>> interested in aphoristic wisdom than in dramatizing the individual¹s
>> emotional relationship to the group. Larkin¹s poems demand a personal
>> connection, and responding to them with disgust is every bit as
>> personal as
>> responding to them with love. Pound, in many ways a less complicated
>> poet
>> than Larkin, never forces us to relate to his art in this way � when
>> we ask,
>> in reference to Pound, ³Can a bad man be a good poet?² we aren¹t
>> covertly
>> wondering about our own normalcy. But when we ask the same question
>> about
>> Larkin, we¹re often really saying, ³Could we really be anything like
>> this ?²
>> He needs to be bad so that we can stay good."
>>
>> http://www.poems.com/essaorr.htm
>>
>> Best
>>
>> A
>>
>>
>> Alison Croggon
>>
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>
>
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