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Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Brandon Sullivan ✍ I’ve always enjoyed This be the Verse, by Philip Larkin:

Philip Larkin, photo from the Socialist Worker

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
♞♜♝
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
♞♜♝
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

A witty, stylish poem. I read it at my daughter’s naming ceremony. In the car later that day, my father-in-law asked me what it meant to me. I said I thought the poet was writing from a comedic point of view, that the poem was a meditation on the beautiful folly of having children when parents will inevitably fuck them up. I said I imagined the poet to be humorous man and likely had children himself. My father-in-law said Larkin didn’t, and I was surprised to learn that Larkin was an academic librarian by trade. I started reading more about Larkin, and was startled by what I found.

It’s easy to find debate about Larkin, and I don’t wish to repeat verbatim here the ins and outs of what others have written about him. But it’s worth quoting the Socialist Worker, who say he had political faith in Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. In 1970:

Prison for strikers
Bring back the cat.
Kick out the n*ggers,
How about that?”

I was shocked when I read it. It flows brilliantly, with content that is vile. How about that? How about f*ck you, Philip Larkin. But then I read a complete version of the poem:

“Prison for strikers,
Bring back the cat,
Kick out the n*ggers,
How about that?
♞♜♝
Trade with the Empire,
Ban the Obscene,
Lock up the Commies,
God Save the Queen.”

And the poem is called “How to Win the General Election.”

Is this parody? Who is this guy? The second verse is surely satirizing Little Englanders? Surely? Is the joke on liberals unable to contextualise? I don’t know.

Back to the Socialist Worker:

“And in 1976 there was:

I want to see them starving,
The so-called working class.
Their wages weekly halving,
Their women stewing grass.
When I drive out each morning
In one of my new suits
I want to find them fawning
To clean my car and boots.”

This strikes me as bitter, angry, maybe humour barely hiding these emotions. Numerous reviews of his life and work confirm his extreme right-wing nature. But his writing is so impactful it merits serious consideration, in my opinion.

Would I have read Larkin’s poem at my daughter’s naming if I’d known more about him? Probably. I wouldn’t have read a Morrissey lyric. Maybe artists need to be dead before their alleged prejudices are treated more leniently, and even then, many aren’t.

I wonder if Larkin ever had remorse for his intemperate speech.

Anyway, some rambling thoughts for me. I’m interested in what Quillers may think.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Separating Art from The Artist ⧪ Philip Larkin

Galway Advertiser ✒ Laurence McKeown - an Irish Republican’s journey from prison cell to published writer.

Kernan Andrews
19-Nov-2020

The Arts are essential to politics, precisely because they can go beyond ideologies and entrenched positions, into the mind and lived experience of another person. Through the artist’s presentation of that life, we can see another perspective; who we might be in other circumstances; or into a reality we have been fortunate enough not to have lived.

For Laurence McKeown, the playwright, academic, and author, who also took part in the 1981 hunger strikes in the H-Blocks, the arts, particularly theatre, has a vital role to play in activism, politics, and public discourse. “The arts take us to a different place, a more human place,” he says.

Lawrence is one of the featured readers at this evening’s Over The Edge, where he will read from his debut poetry collection, Threads. Although published by Salmon Poetry in 2018, it contains poems which date back to his years as an IRA prisoner, and it was in prison his development as a writer began.
 
Continue reading @ Galway Advertiser.

‘The Arts Take Us To A Different Place, A More Human Place’

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