{"id":213,"date":"2006-04-10T12:30:02","date_gmt":"2006-04-10T12:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/04\/10\/poetry-monday-2\/"},"modified":"2006-04-10T12:30:02","modified_gmt":"2006-04-10T12:30:02","slug":"poetry-monday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/2006\/04\/10\/poetry-monday-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I noted that since I left college, where I had to actually study the stuff, I haven’t been reading much poetry. Saddened to learn<\/a> that “it’s probably safe to say that Disillusioned Lefty’s Culture Monday is,for the moment, dead<\/em>“, I thought I’d leap into the breach, and do my best to raise the tone of Mondays with “Poetry Monday”. I can make no promises either for my ability to stick to even a weekly blogging schedule or for the standard of my literary criticism. If nothing else, The reader will at least have been pointed in the direction of some great poetry.<\/p>\n

Though it’s best read off the page rather than a computer screen, there’s a vast amount of poetry online. I’ll kick things off with “The Old Fools”<\/a> by Phillip Larkin:<\/p>\n

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
\nTo make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
\nIt’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
\nAnd you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember
\nWho called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
\nThey could alter things back to when they danced all night,
\nOr went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
\nOr do they fancy there’s really been no change,
\nAnd they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
\nOr sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
\nWatching the light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange;
\n\t\t\tWhy aren’t they screaming?<\/p>\n

At death you break up: the bits that were you
\nStart speeding away from each other for ever
\nWith no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:
\nWe had it before, but then it was going to end,
\nAnd was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
\nTo bring to bloom the million-petalled flower
\nOf being here. Next time you can’t pretend
\nThere’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
\nNot knowing how, not hearing who, the power
\nOf choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:
\nAsh hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines –
\n\t\t\tHow can they ignore it?<\/p>\n

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
\nInside you head, and people in them, acting
\nPeople you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms
\nLike a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
\nSetting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
\nA known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
\nThe rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
\nThe blown bush at the window, or the sun’s
\nFaint friendliness on the wall some lonely
\nRain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
\nNot here and now, but where all happened once.
\n\t\t\tThis is why they give<\/p>\n

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
\nYet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
\nIncompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
\nOf taken breath, and them crouching below
\nExtinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving
\nHow near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
\nThe peak that stays in view wherever we go
\nFor them is rising ground. Can they never tell
\nWhat is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
\nNot when the strangers come? Never, throughout
\nThe whole hideous inverted childhood? Well,
\n\t\t\tWe shall find out.<\/em><\/p>\n

By all accounts, Larkin wasn’t always the nicest of men; Apart from being a self-pitying miseryguts, he was reactionary, racist and often misogynistic. All this, when it was discovered via his collected letters <\/a>and the biography<\/a> by British Poet-Laureate Andrew Motion, did not endear him to the Political Philistines <\/a>– if he has so very awful, then the poetry must<\/em> be awful too.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, his work is witty, lucid, and posessed of a humanity that makes Larkin the poet (as opposed to Larkin the man) a deeply sympathetic figure. This poem comes from High Windows<\/a>, his collection of 1973 which, to use a music analogy, is his “classic album”, home to most of his best known poems. “The Old Fools” is less famous than “This Be the Verse” or “Annus Mirabilis”, but is a better, deeper poem. From the initial disgust at the Old Fools, we move to an attempt at understanding, a realisation perhaps that the disgust is driven by fear (Larkin was morbid even as a young man. Terrified of death, he was haunted by the notion of it’s inevitability). The second verse could almost stand alone as poem all by itself. “The bits that were you, speeding away from each other forever” both combine and contrast with “the million-petalled flower of being here”, to give a sense of life emerging preciously but heartbreakingly briefly from oblivion before returning there, like the brief patterns made by a lava lamp.<\/p>\n

Larkin moves on inside the heads of the old fools in the next verse, his tone softened; now more elegiac, more melancholy. As he moves from third to last verse, he gives us a heartbreaking description of senility: ” An air of baffled absence, trying to be there, yet being here.” This is the amazed realisation that, unfairly, time and age affect you too, the sense of “where did it all go?”. Are they aware of what’s coming next, he wonders, before concluding with a shrug, “well, we shall find out”.<\/p>\n

This is not a cheerful poem, but is nonetheless a life-affirming one. Though the poet fears and dreads death, he does so because of an awareness of the preciousness of life. His disgust at the old fools is, we soon learn, bravado. He’s not unsympathetic to their plight, if only because he’s terrified of facing it himself. In going from disgust to sympathy to acceptance, Larkin brings us with him, thus enriching us. The final shrug of accesptance isn’t much, but it is enlightenment of a sort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently I noted that since I left college, where I had to actually study the stuff, I haven’t been reading much poetry. Saddened to learn that “it’s probably safe to say that Disillusioned Lefty’s Culture Monday is,for the moment, dead“, I thought I’d leap into the breach, and do my best to raise the tone of Mondays with “Poetry Monday”. I can make no promises either for my ability to stick to even a weekly blogging schedule or for the standard of my literary criticism. If nothing else, The reader will at least have been pointed in the direction of some great poetry. Though it’s best read off the page rather than a computer screen, there’s a vast amount of poetry online. I’ll kick things off with “The Old Fools” by Phillip Larkin: What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools, And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose, They could alter things back to when they danced all night, Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September? Or do they fancy there’s really been no change, And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight, Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming Watching the light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange; Why aren’t they screaming? At death you break up: the bits that were you Start speeding away from each other for ever With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true: We had it before, but then it was going to end, And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs: Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it: Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines – How can they ignore it? Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside you head, and people in them, acting People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning, Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting A known book from the shelves; or […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}