I'd trade "present and future" for "past and present" any day. :)
KS
On 19 May 2011 13:00, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Suzi,
> My first encounter with Larkin's poems wasn't great either, but then
> several
> of them grew on me.
> Perhaps you have had the same initial experience with poetry by Frost,
> Hardy, Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth, Marvell, George Herbert...
> These when persevered with prove rewarding in themselves, I have found, and
> also prepare readers for poetry of the last few decades.
>
> You probably want to recommend some reading to me to widen MY sense of the
> past and the present? Go ahead -
>
> Best wishes from Max R
>
>
> On 19/05/11 6:30 PM, "Suzi Hall" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > This poetry is so conservative and boring there is no point reading it
> >
> > On 19/05/2011, at 5:45 PM, Max Richards wrote:
> >
> >> What more suitable prompting for tears than the finding of evidence
> >> that
> >> one's parents loved each other! By all means stifle tears in certain
> >> circumstances, but do make time, Chris, for some tearful blessings
> >> on them
> >> surviving now merely in you and maybe your siblings.
> >> And write them a poem. Best from Max
> >> The one that comes to my mind is by Philip Larkin,
> >>
> >> Love Songs in Age...
> >>
> >> She kept her songs, they kept so little space,
> >> The covers pleased her:
> >> One bleached from lying in a sunny place,
> >> One marked in circles by a vase of water,
> >> One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
> >> And coloured, by her daughter -
> >> So they had waited, till, in widowhood
> >> She found them, looking for something else, and stood
> >>
> >> Relearning how each frank submissive chord
> >> Had ushered in
> >> Word after sprawling hyphenated word,
> >> And the unfailing sense of being young
> >> Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
> >> That hidden freshness sung,
> >> That certainty of time laid up in store
> >> As when she played them first. But, even more,
> >>
> >> The glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love,
> >> Broke out, to show
> >> Its bright incipience sailing above,
> >> Still promising to solve, and satisfy,
> >> And set unchangeably in order. So
> >> To pile them back, to cry,
> >> Was hard, without lamely admitting how
> >> It had not done so then, and could not now.
> >>
> >>
> >> On 19/05/11 5:57 PM, "Christopher C Jones" <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Sat, 2011-05-14 at 20:22 +1000, Max Richards wrote:
> >>>> Good luck, Chris
> >>>
> >>> Right now I am going over the long out of date cheque books and bank
> >>> statements of my mother's and burning them.
> >>>
> >>> In between I find not only letters from myself to my parents but love
> >>> letters and cards between my parents. I am so fortunate that I had
> >>> parents that loved each other as much as they loved their children.
> >>>
> >>> I am told, that to prevent crying, push your tongue hard up into your
> >>> mouth and stare into the middle distance.
> >>>
> >>
> >> --
>
> --
>
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