poetry spam

[keestone]

I'm far too overwhelmed right now to blog a poem a day like so many wonderful people are doing, but I do want so share one every now and then.  I'm in a strange mood and I'm teaching The Whitsun Weddings tomorrow, so here's a lovely one from Larkin:

This Be the Verse
by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they

Comments

[donnaustin]

i like it.

[keestone]

;) Me too.

[paulamcg]

You teach Larkin? I’d like to hear more about that - to tell my friend ishonn, too, who’s made me interested in his poems.

[keestone]

Well I don't claim to know any more about Larkin than any reader who has some concept of how to analyze a poem, but yeah. The 20th Century Lit class I ended up as a tutor for last year included The Whitsun Weddings. I mainly put a couple poems up on the board and had everybody do a close reading together. I think I discussed Larkin's use of persona a bit as well. He's a very deliberate craftsman, so some poems make very good examples of how certain techniques add to the overall thematic effect. (And it was a breath of fresh air after discussing, Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf.)

[paulamcg]

Thank you for the kind reply. (Having had the opportunity to do only one course in literature for children) I can’t help finding it fascinating that you teach and study literature. (I now work as a kindergarten teacher, and I used to be a lawyer in development co-operation. Information you haven’t asked for, I know, and I won’t say more about this topic online.) Ishonn studies translating. (Mainly not literary translation, but) she’s been interested in translating e.g. Larkin’s poems.