Following on from Auden’s American accent, I’ve discovered the reverse phenomenon in Larkin’s Sunday Sessions. In ‘A Study of Reading Habits’ he uses the American word ‘dude’ — which, in the recorded version, he pronounces ‘dyood’ (instead of the usual ‘dood’) in a very arch Received Pronunciation. It’s very funny. And I’m guessing deliberately conservative, […]
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Philip Larkin — The Sunday Sessions
Required listening for Larkin fans — The Sunday Sessions — a recently rediscovered recording of the poet reading some of his best poems: The Sunday Sessions consists of twenty-six poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 — reportedly each on a Sunday after lunch with John weeks, […]
Geoffrey Hill Interview in the Oxonian Review
Thanks to Baroque in Hackney for finding this Interview with Geoffrey Hill in the Oxonian Review. For someone with a reputation for forbiddingly serious poetry, its nice to see he doesn’t take himself too seriously: How do you envisage your own poetry’s readership? Impossible to say. When I see my half-yearly royalties statements I seem […]
Seamus Heaney — ‘Casualty’
I‘m two thirds of the way through Stepping Stones, Dennis O’Driscoll’s interviews with Seamus Heaney, which effectively constitute an autobiography. (So expect the Heaney tag in the sidebar to keep getting bigger.) It’s like reading in High Definition. There are some spectacular moments, like Heaney’s description of a visionary experience among the skyscrapers of Manhattan, […]
Ted Hughes on the Poet’s Gift
The poet’s only hope is to be infinitely sensitive to what his gift is, and this in itself seems to be another gift that few poets possess. ‘Context’, Winter Pollen Apart from self-knowledge, this is a good argument for feedback – provided you can find an infinitely sensitive critic (who doesn’t mince their words).