12 Comments

Jeffrey, this wonderful post was my introduction to the poem and to you. I look forward to revisiting it. When my eye fell on the wheat metaphor, I thought of Auden's "The crowds upon the pavement/ Were fields of harvest wheat," from his magnificent "As I Walked Out One Evening."

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Rona, and thank you for that lovely Auden quote. I've got a feeling that Pope has an interesting line about wheat somewhere but I can't recall it just now. Thank you especially for reading my essays over the last year! I truly appreciate your support and also benefit from everything you write.

Expand full comment

Such a wonderful reflection on a brilliant poem, Jeffrey. I especially like the parts about Milton and Paddington station in your annotations. I’ve been asked by a former student for a short wedding video with poem (in lieu of traveling to Singapore, unfortunately!) - maybe this is it!

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Kate! As for the wedding video, I'd say this poem could work very well!

Expand full comment

Such a beautiful essay. Erudite, analytical, but above all, deeply personal. You have a great gift for connecting those elements. Very sorry I missed it the first time! I’m glad you reposted it.

Thank you for the introduction to this poem. At the time you were reading Larkin, I think he was overlooked in the States. But I did share your love of Plath, Wright, Bly, and others you’ve mentioned. As for books as “stuff” I wish I could say the same. Unfortunately, books are my structural walls; without them, my life would collapse. Or not. I’m afraid to find out.

Safe travels. Enjoy your time away.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for your beautiful comments, Mary. Structural walls! Please leave those books where they are! 😊 I think Larkin doesn't travel that well, artistically speaking. Though Robert Lowell admired him, I believe.

Expand full comment
18 hrs agoLiked by Jeffrey Streeter

I traveled the train to visit my parents in the years I went to university. The train I took was expressly meant for daily commuters. Even my minimal luggage was viewed askance if I mistimed my trip to coincide with rush hour.

The commuter trains discouraged eating, but I completely relate to not liking to eat in front of strangers. My maternal grandfather was raised by a upper middle class English mother. His reluctance to eat in front of others or even use public toilets seems to have been genetically inherited by a number of his descendants. Need must, of course, but always with acute discomfort.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for sharing those memories, Holly! Journeys by train in Britain can be fraught with hidden social perils, can't they?

Expand full comment
20 hrs agoLiked by Jeffrey Streeter

This isnt the first time I see you refer to the physical book and how you happened upon it containing the work you’re about to talk about. This type of thing can make one forget her constant struggle with sentimentality in favour of not having too much “stuff” and start a personal library 😪

Beautiful essay, as always!

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Ani! I don't like having much "stuff" and rarely buy physical books anymore, but I enjoy the ones I have.

Expand full comment

What a wonderful post. Your analytical nostalgia makes that poem feel so different - personal and warm - something that I can't normally associate with Larkin. This weekend I shall look out my own bits and bobs of Larkin and pay more attention to form on the page, and thank you for encouraging me to seek them out.

Expand full comment

A beautiful essay. I am captivated by the weaving of your life into the poem, as I have a relationship to poetry that transports me to when I first read it. You convey bittersweet so well.

I am fascinated by Larkin’s views on poetry on the page. I recently prepares a story for a live telling. With a 3-5min time limit I pared the story back on the page but found that spoken I had to add a few linking or contextual words back in. And yet Larkin, like all good poetry, cries to be read aloud and savoured in the mouth.

I’ve not read The Whitsun Weddings before. My favourite (most familiar) Larkin is Churchgoing. [https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/pl-church.htm] I encountered it in The World’s Contracted Thus, our school poetry textbook. We never studied the poem but I instantly loved it. After visiting England, and enjoying historical churches, my love only deepened.

Safe and joyful travels to you.

Expand full comment