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 Larkinıs defenders and detractors find themselves debating whether the
>poet can speak ³for us² whether he is, in essence, ³normal² theyıre
>acting out a script written by the poet himself, who all along has been less
>interested in aphoristic wisdom than in dramatizing the individualıs
>emotional relationship to the group. Larkinıs 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 arenıt covertly
>wondering about our own normalcy. But when we ask the same question about
>Larkin, weıre 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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