POEM OF THE MONTH
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April 2010 – chosen by Douglas Dunn
Essential Beauty
In frames as large as rooms that face all ways And block the ends of streets with giant loaves, Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves Of how life should be. High above the gutter A silver knife sinks into golden butter, A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and Well-balanced families, in fine Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars, Even their youth, to that small cube each hand Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars (Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats By slippers on warm mats, Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam, Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs, And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents Just missed them, as the pensioner paid A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea To taste old age, and dying smokers sense Walking towards them through some dappled park As if on water that unfocused she No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near, Who now stands newly clear, Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.26 June 1962
From The Whitsun Weddings
© The Estate of Philip Larkin
COMMENT
Although "Granny Graveclothes' Tea" must surely be an invention, no doubt there are scholars of Fifties and Sixties advertising who could identify the source of Larkin's images in this underdiscussed poem. It is a fine example of how Larkin could pictorialise thought while "thinking in verse". In this case he plays off the perfections of idealised products with the realities of disappointment and death. Part of the final image, the smoker, must be "the lonely man" from one of ITV's early ads, and which was very famous in its time, iconic in fact, and now preserved for ever in a higher form of art.
In a radio programme edited by George MacBeth, Ted Hughes said "Philip Larkin's poetry is very sad, and the sadder it is the better I like it." I quote from memory. I was in the studio and was astonished and delighted by the boldness of Hughes's candour. Perhaps we should be more honest with poetry and not be afraid to celebrate the quality of a poet's melancholy.
Douglas Dunn
Douglas Dunn was born in Renfrewshire in 1942. He came to Hull in 1966 as a University student, graduated with a First class degree in 1969 and then stayed on until 1984, briefly working in the Brynmor Jones Library under his friend and mentor Philip Larkin. It was Larkin who gave Dunn's first collection of poetry its title, Terry Street (Faber and Faber, 1969). Since his return to his homeland in 1984 he has become a major role model for younger Scottish writers like Don Paterson (recently awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry), Robert Crawford, Kathleen Jamie and W.N. Herbert.
In addition to his collections of poetry and short stories he has edited a number of anthologies, including Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry (2006), and has written several television and radio plays. He was awarded an OBE in 2003.
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