He looks a bit like Eric Morecambe in some of his photos – which is probably not a good comparison.
I wrote this after watching a YouTube clip of Philip Larkin riding a bicycle. I can’t exactly remember what he was doing but association with An Arundel Tomb has always made me think he was visiting churches, even though I’m not convinced that a church features in the clip. It started out as a longer piece and I pruned it and polished it every time it came back, which was often. I think it was sent out at least four times. On the last occasion I didn’t, as i recall, do anything, as i couldn’t think of anything else to do so I just sent it straight out again and, a day later, it was accepted.
This is an example of how editors all have different views and requirements.
Meanwhile, although I have used it on the blog before, I use it here to illustrate the making of moral judgements. Larkin, you see, was a racist according to his letters. That illustrates several points, such as whether we should judge poetry through a filter of our own morality. Just because he was a racist does that make him a bad poet? And if we do decided to judge a writer by his morals rather than his writing, is it fair to judge one as a racist because he preserved his correspondence, yet to make no judgement on another writer who may have failed to preserve his correspondence?
That’s a tricky thing about making moral judgements, they aren’t always accurate – a bit like the poem, which picks and choses which facts to use. I didn’t use moral judgements in selecting the facts, just what fitted nicely into the flow.
Hidden Worlds
He wears a grey gaberdine and rides a bicycle from church to church. In his head he composes poems about sex and tombs. On YouTube he flickers in black and white, like a newsreel from the 1950s. Smiles are clearly still on ration.
Larkin used more bad language than you normally expect from a librarian. This becomes understandable when you find that he started his day with half a bottle of sherry.
monochrome photo
my parents younger than me
1963
Failed Haiku Feb 2021
The quality will prevail – eventually
I am rather of the opinion that it is the result that speaks for itself.
That is a good way to look at it. Any other way is too difficult and unfair.
Your poem illustrates the tug of time as our parents recede and we loom larger in the frame. As for moral judgment…where do we draw the line? I don’t know.
When I’m writing it doesn’t matter as it hits the paper just like it comes out of my head. Publishing and writing, I tend to shy away from judgements as I always end up more confused than when I started.