For those alert to being, any encounter is a collision of decisions which test our own. How am I alike? How different? Wrestling a poem, we assess ourselves. The mightier the poem, the more unsettling its challenge. Reading, then, is an act of self-definition, our assessment of a poem implicit self-assertion.
Philip Larkin’s talent is unarguable but is he fun to read? His most quoted poem is a punch in the face:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThis Be the Verse
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.
Do you like this poem? See a shrink! Hate it? A shrink might be helpful there too. Is the poem a joke? In earnest? In either case a frontal attack on our complacencies, notions of decency. Where do you stand in relation to this guy?
I’m a Philip Larkin fan, no, foe, no fan. His diction delights, his depictions disturb. His precise, wily use of language and poetic forms wobbles me with awe. His cold stare and contempt for evasions make me crouch in a corner to hide.
Larkin (1922-1985) made his money as a university librarian, to avoid (he claims) the corruptions of a literary or academic life. He eschewed love, marriage, parenting, ostensibly for the same reason. “I’m not fond of company,” he said. “I’m very fond of people, but it’s hard to get people without company.” His poetry feels lonely, but so what? “If you’re in good health, and have enough money, and nothing is bothering you for the foreseeable future,” he said, “that’s as much ‘happiness’ as you can hope for.” Of his slim Collected Poems, a handful earn my asterisk accolade and only one, “Whitsun Weddings,” a double. Yet his is a voice I revert to, need somehow, even when I’d rather be focusing elsewhere.
A month ago we dabbled in “Whitsun :Weddings”, so how about “High Windows” for a return visit? It launches with the characteristic hard-nosed sneering of “This Be the Verse”:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhen I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise…
Mr. Tough Guy, right? Impervious to ache. Then the poet remembers his own cockiness in that giddying epoch when cock holds sway and our drab elders view us (inaccurately) as “free bloody birds”.
We expect, from the preceding, one more sneer to conclude the singsong jingle. But wait!
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedRather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Beyond the mess of human misunderstandings – and not far beyond – just the other side of windows we take to be a church’s – glows eternity – with its wonder, serenity, solace, where any may seek refuge and all are welcome.
Larkin, his remains suggest, was a bitter man, disappointed with his loveless lot. He defends his choices, but they were not his first choices. This was his hard testudinal shell. The high windows are the magic of imagination, art, which transforms the mess into marvelous:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Look up! Look up!
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHigh Windows
When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives— Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought, That’ll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide What you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slide Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.