I Wish I'd Written This

The Mower

By Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   

Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   

Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence   

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   

While there is still time.

British poet Philip Larkin's work is often regarded as gloomy and cynical.  I admire the way he combines formal rhyme and metre with clear, down-to-earth language. It's the opposite of consciously 'poetic' language,  though in fact he is masterly at finding the right, fresh words. However I don't exactly love his poetry, and could not see myself writing with such pessimism.   

But that's not all there is to him. The Mower confronts the facts head-on, as Larkin always appears to do; nevertheless it displays a tenderness which must have been part of the man, no less than his famous curmudgeonly persona. It's perhaps the only poem of Larkin's I'd like to have written — though I do also enjoy his most often quoted piece, This Be the Verse, which reveals his humour (albeit in this case a rather sardonic humour):

They f**k you up, your mum and dad. 

They may not mean to, but they do.

[etc.]

Larkin was a distinguished and innovative librarian, the author of two novels, and a respected critic of both literature and music. Although he produced only four slim volumes of poetry, he was so highly regarded that he was offered the position of Poet Laureate after John Betjeman died, but declined. He tended to steer clear of literary celebrity and said that he would like his poems to sound as if he was chatting to his mates in the pub.

He did, however, give readings of his work, some of which can be heard at his Poetry Archive entry.   Also he's on YouTube.

His biography at The Poetry Foundation discusses his poetics, and he was interviewed by The Paris Review.

All his books are still available on Amazon.

I'm grateful to him for being committed to making poetry accessible. In that, he was a major influence on 20th Century poetry.

Having written all that, I discover a wonderful article about him by Jacob Knowles-Smith in an earlier Poets United series, Poet History. This was written in December 2010. If, like me, you were unaware of it, do have a look. It covers material I don't, and I highly recommend it.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).

Poet History # 13 The Brownings, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert

Written by bkmackenzie

Elizabeth Barrett Browning           Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England just a suburb of London. The first born of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His father was a clerk at the Bank of England forgoing the fortune of his own father by refusing to work at a sugar plantation which was a farmed by means of slavery. Even on his modest salary he was able to marry, raise a family, and to acquire a library of 6000 volumes. He was an exceedingly well-read and self-educated man. And it though this vast library of books that the young poet would receive his education. Robert was an extremely bright child and an avid reader and took it upon himself to learn Latin, Greek, French and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He attended the University of London in 1828, but left in discontent to pursue his studies by reading at his own pace. His extensive education has led to difficulties for his reader’s; he did not always realize how obscure his references and allusions were.

Poet History # 12 Philip Larkin

Written by Jacob Knowles-Smith

Love and Death in Hull – Philip Larkin

Life is first boredom, then fear.

From ‘Dockery and Son’ by Philip Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985)

If ever someone could be said to have lived a writer’s life it would be Philip Larkin. One of the 20th century’s greatest poets, yet who only ever published three mature collections of poetry over a glacially slow three decades, he nevertheless warded off any encroachments upon his independence with almost pathological fervour and was terrified by the prospect of a future filled with marriage and kids (“Children are horrible, aren’t they?”).

Poet History #11 - Maya Angelou

Written by Sherry Blue Sky

Maya Angelou – Renaissance Woman

With a bearing that can only described as regal, Maya Angelou is a woman often referred to as a global renaissance woman. One of her quotes states, “I believe that each of us comes from the Creator, trailing wisps of glory,” and in her dignified bearing she reflects this personal truth.

Born in 1928 in Missouri, she has made a name for herself as a poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, actress, producer/director and civil rights activist. She is well known for having written and delivered the inaugural address for President Bill Clinton’s Presidential inauguration, entitled On the Pulse of the Morning.

Poet History #10 - John Ashbery

Written by Larry Patterson

John Ashbery, born July 28, 1927, is recognized as one of the greatest twentieth century American poets; winning nearly every award for poetry including: The Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York and raised on a farm near Lake Ontario, where his brother died when they were children. Educated at the Deerfied Academy, an all boys school, Ashbery was introduced to such poets as W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas, and soon after he began writing poetry.

Poet History # 9 - W.B. Yeats

Perfecting the work – W. B. Yeats

Written by Jacob Knolwes-Smith

“The intellect of the man is forced to choose perfection of the life or of the work.”

William Butler Yeats (13 June, 1865 – 28 January 1939)

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all.
          from ‘In Memory of William Butler Yeats’ by W. H. Auden

THE ABOVE quote from Auden’s elegiac poem no doubt refers to the fact that William Butler Yeat’s was influenced throughout his entire life by occult, mystical and astrological interests. In 1911 Yeats became a member of “The Ghost Club” – a paranormal investigation society – and joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1890 (where he made an enemy of that infamous scamp, Aleister Crowley). He would remain in a splinter branch of the Order until 1921. Yeats was also, like many 19th century figures, influenced by the famous extoller of flimflam and humbug Emmanuel Swedenborg. Fortunately for us, however, he was also influenced by the unrivalled visionary William Blake (who renounced Swedenborg) and so, as Auden states, despite this belief in tarot, ghosts, magic/magick, angels, etc., the work survives all of this. (Both Yeats’ secretary, Ezra Pound, and his patient wife, Georgie, both deemed his occult proclivities hokum but those who wish to further explore Yeats’ ideas should consult A Vision (1925).)

Poet History #8 - Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott 1930- Present
Written by Eileen T O'Neill

I have chosen to write about a poet who has written one of the most beautiful poems that I have ever read entitled, Love after Love.......

This poem was the epigraph in the novel The Time Traveller’s Wife, written by Audrey Niffenegger.

Love after Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and you will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Copyright Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott was born in St Castries, St Lucia on 23rd January 1930. St Lucia, a tiny island in the eastern Caribbean, was at that time an outpost of the British Empire. At the age of fourteen years, he had his first poem published in the local newspaper, The Voice of St Lucia, on August 2nd 1944. It consisted of forty four lines of Miltonic-Wordsworthian blank verse.

Poet History # 7 - Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton (November 9th, 1928 – October 4th, 1974)
Written by bkmackenzie

Anne Gray Harvey was born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1928. Her parents were Mary Gray Staples and Ralph Harvey Sexton with her father being a successful wool manufacturer WWII which ensured a comfortable middle class lifestyle. The family however was far from ideal with Ralph being an alcoholic and her mother a frustrated writer that never felt fulfilled.

Poet History # 6 - Rumi and Hafiz

Written by Sherry Blue Sky

RUMI AND HAFIZ – beloved Persian poets

Separated by a hundred years, in the 13th and 14th centuries, Rumi and Hafiz were Persian ecstatic Sufi mystic poets, whose work celebrated and encouraged union with the Divine.

Rumi (1207 to 1273) was born in the eastern-most province of Persia, but his family fled west during the Mongol invasion, and he lived most of his life in the Sultanate of Rum, in present-day Turkey.

Rumi’s works are available in many translations, notably by Coleman Barks, the foremost translator of Rumi’s works for thirty years. Coleman Barks, in speaking about the mystical and synchronistic things that happen in life, said “We can’t explain them. If we try, it’s like a bunch of fish schooling together to discuss the possibility of the ocean. Rumi lives in that ocean.” Of Rumi’s poems, Barks says, “This is just sheet music for your wild true nature. You’ve got to sing the song.”

Poet History #5 - Jack Kerouac

By Larry Patterson

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac, born March 12, 1922, an American novelist and poet, he was a pioneer of the beat generation alongside other members such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Considered a literary iconoclast, Kerouac’s writings were most recognized for the spontaneous method covering a wide variety of topics such as his travels, Jazz, Drugs, and Buddhism only to name a few. His more notorious works include titles such as Visions of Cody, On the Road, Mexico City Blues, The Dharma Bums, a much more.

Poet History - #5 Sylvia Plath

Written by Jacob Knolwes-Smith

Dying Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

    

       from ‘Lady Lazarus’

“Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963)

Tragedy. Tragedy is a word often associated with Sylvia Plath and, certainly, when she took her life in 1963 that was a tragedy but to call her life tragic is to ignore the almost palpably vibrant work that it produced. One reason for this association is the public obsession with literary biography (which we indulge here, of course) which means that people know more about the lives of Plath, and husband Ted Hughes, than they know, or would ever care to, about her poetry. Another reason for this is that, as the above quote indicates, Plath wrote about death and horror to a great extent and so her work, influenced by depression, comes full circle in the end.

Poet History #4 - Edna St. Vincent Millay

 ~by bkmackenzie

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk

Between me and the crying of the frogs?

Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,

That am a timid woman, on her way

From one house to another!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

As I have written elsewhere , all my favorite poets begin with the letter “E”, and of these, Edna St. Vincent Millay is one of the finest. I first became mesmerized by the persona of Millay upon reading Savage Beauty, The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford. A spellbinding read that leaves you feeling you have just watched her life portrayed before your eyes in classic black and white film. It is precisely why I chose Millay as the first of poets to write about at Poet’s United.

Poet History #3 - Mary Oliver

By Sherry Blue Sky

Prayer

May I never not be frisky.
May I never not be risqué.
May my ashes, when you have them, friend, and give them to the ocean,
Leap in the froth of waves,
Still loving movement,

Still ready, beyond all else,

To dance for the world.

This poem is by Mary Oliver, from her latest book of poems, Evidence. And this following quote, from an earlier poem, explains why Mary Oliver, poet and lover of the natural world, is my all-time, hands-down favourite poet.

Poet History - #2 Allen Ginsberg

By Larry Patterson

Allen Ginsberg, born June 3rd, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, was one of America’s most notorious Beat Generation Poets (Which also included other, but not limited to, poets such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Carl Solomon) and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg was the son of Lois Ginsberg and Naomi Ginsberg, his father being a poet and a high school teacher, while his mother suffered from a psychological illness. As a poet, he is most widely known for his two lengthier poems Howl (1956) and Kaddish (1958-1960), written for his mother who passed on in 1956).

Poet History - #1 W.H. Auden

By Jacob Knowles-Smith

W. H. Auden & the Addictions of Sin

“All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.”

- Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973)

W. H. Auden was born in England in the city of York (not all that far from where this author sits now) in 1907 and would become one of the most influential poets and greatest writers of the 20th century. Auden grew up reading all subjects equally; science, philosophy and literature and thus spent his first year at Christ Church, Oxford studying biology until he switched to his true calling, English, in his second year. Eventually he came down from Oxford with an unspectacular third class degree (not a first showing his natural flare and lightning mind, nor a fourth showing contempt for the examinations) and spent time in Berlin, indulging an interest in the still fresh work of Freud, before returning to England to teach English.

Poet History

Poets United would like to introduce you to our new ongoing series Poet History. All of us as writers have our favorite poets and authors that help inspire us to put pen to paper, but how much do we really know about them? Some of us draw inspiration from a poem or two but do we really ever go deeper than that? Do we attempt to see what the inspiration behind the poem or the person themselves was? If you have, then that is an admirable undertaking. If you have not, then that is what we want to do with this series.