Monday, May 31, 2021
Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson- Luckenbach, Texas
Stupid People
First off: Being morbidly curious about Sylvia Plath's suicide, I did searches online trying to find out how long it would take to die if you stuck your head in a gas oven in 1963 Britain.
Couldn't find out much about the time frame (20 minutes, 2 hours?), but did find out that coal gas, which the UK used up until the '70s, was very potent and a prime source of suicides. In the '70s, they switched to natural gas, and the suicide rate dropped. From a 1988 "Crime and Justice" journal article:
Between 1963 and 1975 the annual number of suicides in England and Wales
showed a sudden, unexpected decline from 5,714 to 3,693 at a time when
suicide continued to increase in most other European countries. This
appears to be the result of the progressive removal of carbon monoxide
from the public gas supply. Accounting for more than 40 percent of
suicides in 1963, suicide by domestic gas was all but eliminated by
1975.
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During the above search, I came upon a couple of very odd, stupid things:
One was a widely distributed (but fake) "Plath suicide photo"---of a short, squat dead woman with very thick legs and a knee-length dress, wearing white gloves and white heels, with her head stuck in an oven. (Do a search for "Sylvia Plath suicide" and you'll find this.) In fact, Plath was tall and thin, with thin legs---and, according to every account, she was wearing her nightgown (and no gloves or heels) when she killed herself.
What I also found online: Many young people on various chat sites refused to believe that Plath killed herself by sticking her head in an oven because: "I know for a fact that it would get too hot and no one could stand having their head in there for that long."
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As another Stupid aside: At my apartment complex, many people set things out by the dumpsters, or on top of a couple of cement posts next to the dumpsters, when they want to get rid of them. I, for instance, have put an old table out there, as well as a pair of old red rubber boots. On Saturday, I found a bunch of green onions on top of a post, with one stalk bitten off. Was someone actually supposed to excitedly grab this and go home and make a salad?
Thursday, May 27, 2021
John Cena Apologizes to China (in Mandarin) for Calling Taiwan a Country
Cena: You're an embarrassing, cowardly Communist China shill.
Movie studios love China because the market is so incredibly big. I'm pretty sure that your studio forced you to make this grovelling hostage video. (At least I hope so---if you came up with this on your own, you're an outright dummy.)
You, like LeBron James, are utterly beholden to the corporations, with their Chinese connections, who pay you. I don't expect action stars or sports stars to be smart---you focused on other, physical things from a very young age. But please don't pretend that you know anything about politics. (Or, Cena, if you actually DO know anything about politics, and still support and apologize to Communist China, then you're a traitor to your country.)
For shame.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Star Quality
We have been taught
to believe in stars
and to witness each image
as our own, blown up.
(I wish myself smaller, apart
from all lack.)
In ten years, the
sky has not changed.
In ten years, I can only hear
loss like the movement of some great
beast, or heart stopped
in all its thrust
into some void or other.
The sky is not seen.
I've had visions
of mercy at the hands of strangers,
the one caught eye.
Once last a lifetime,
now less that, lest that
other hand catch too quick
and, caught, lose whatever
chance of heart we had.
The ache is the same.
The glimpses--maybe three, maybe
five, times into what
internity promised since--
birth? The singing is so rare,
and when it comes and is caught
in the throat and coughed back
like so much bad air, what loss.
At what cost each casualty
of decay allowed to flourish before even
the first nourishment takes place.
We move backward first, into the
predictability of death, as if
proud of such discovery, as if
proud of the circumvention
of each unnecessary day-
break, what is merely the half
dividing night from night.
I am too young
for such dis-ease.
What is just my loss
borrows sadness
from stars.
Awake!
what oaths have been sworn, what
twinning of thought
could have led to such comfort, such
easy grace you now possess--
still, curled and clenched as a fist
a salvaged pearl in each tight palm
listen to me! your sleep
is grief and breathing even
an affront
you sense the descent
as dead anger needles
yellow and fall
to pin fluttery fly-by-nights
in a welter of ether
whir of disturbance
to mar your
blur of dreams and wings
such is capture, such is cure
each motive unpure
for the purpose of
loosing in you
a howl so winter-white, in-
sightful in its need, im-
prisoned by sleep's frost
of thoughts both delicate and untrue
to awaken you?
my fury, like the sky, imparts
a thousand falling stars
to catch
or watch emblazon
vast expanse
a world wooed by fire
blackens through misuse
until I learn, my darling,
we will burn
Monday, May 24, 2021
Tigers and Hunters
are lovers at first.
The battle still game.
The rifle may jam.
The Hunter survive
stiletto swipe to face,
tender-Tiger-style.
There is always hope then.
That one may simply
lie still and let the other
lope off.
But what if the aiming
of that rifle, those claws,
is too stirring
to resist.
If the memory of that
gun, and that click,
trigger the sickness
of last week's miss;
the claws--the kiss
once transfigured.
If either Beast will
not lie down. And paws
scrape metal, or pavement,
or dirt, and the jaw is
a weapon, the snarl
of a curse, and haunches
tense at each small sound.
And then eyes lock, each
split upswept--
and Jungle cries only
with Keeper
and Kept.
Blitzkrieg
She has seen her face in food, food on walls,
the late-night aftershave men in suede,
felt her body shot ripping gold chains.
She heard the wish for the plane crash,
wings crumbling, the captain's cool voice,
applause two thousand miles away
Is it what he wanted, these killing words
Such words lie in wait, the wet-fur cringe
down low on plastic tiles, the rattling knob
echoed in slow, cold mirrors
the slower cracking of the plywood door
("somewhere my blood beats sure as rain
from tin roofs and in drains
on the face of a boy
whose lips part for my outpouring")
She has seen his eyes on the banks of the Rhine,
seen him for the first time: in cafes, the wine
mingling hot, and his hand on her arm.
Oh, such eyes, those black-heart jacks,
reflect nothing on her, or the woman she may be.
They see things in voltage:
the blue bolts dangling, frantic, to the right temple,
the right mind that may be changed.
Still a fear of eyeless drives her
past speaking, past belief
to some world sightless in itself
in a search for
love, like gold, a vision
given cost beyond weight,
melting once to perfection, twice
to a lesser state.
At what point is credibility gained?
At what point is the gained thing forsaken?
She grows old in this hothouse
as lilies fill her mouth
And pardons the exile,
takes her fine time
looking up
There is always the trial.
As Defendant, she must submit
herself, a luxurious thing of lines undrawn
and she feels the split
the plaintive cracks in perception
that see her past stained windows
and into light that glows alone.
"Addressing Disruptive & Unacceptable Behavior in our Community"
Ha-ha-ha-ha! After the VERY FIRST weekend that my apartment pool has been open in over a year since being shut down because of Covid... My white-trash neighbors were ALREADY, according to the below message just received today from apartment management, fighting AND fucking at the newly opened pool from 2am to 5am this past Friday night/Saturday morn.
This missive in today's mail:
With multiple complaints and concerns from fellow neighbors, it has come
to our attention that some events took place at our community pool
Friday night following Saturday morning around 2-5am that were utterly
disruptive to the surrounding neighbors reaching as far as the other
side of the community. These events were strictly against-- not only
community policies but also city ordinance. This behavior is
unacceptable and will not be tolerated by our community. Let us remember
what is not only in all of your signed handbooks but in two recent
announcements on the resident portal. To be more clear and extend on
what is firmly written-- our pool hours from 10am - 10pm apply to all
residents and guests. Nudity, including inappropriate and intimate
activities are unacceptable in our public amenity spaces at any time.
Other unacceptable activities which fall under basic respect for other
people as well as the written ‘Good Neighbor Policy’ (also found in your
handbook) are not being courteous to neighbors in noise level such as
fighting. Please remember that signing a lease contract with R----
Management is agreeing to all of its guidelines and policies which
includes making sure guests you bring into our community are following
the same expectations. Please note that our management may, and will
refuse anyone admission to the pool.
To our neighbors, we apologize on behalf of this group of individuals
and highly encourage you to call the police if anything like this occurs
during closed business hours. If there are any disturbances past the
city ordinance, please report the incident to authorities and inform the
leasing office the following business day. If you have any information
on who these individuals are, I encourage you to email, call or visit
the leasing office. You will automatically be an anonymous source--your
privacy is respected.
----------------------------------------------------
What is so amazing to me: I heard NONE of this going on! And I'm usually the first to pop out and tell someone else to shut up: firecrackers going off, kids in my apartment or on my roof or kicking balls against walls, loud music next door, parties after 10pm at a picnic table... I'm not shy! Granted, there's one row of apartments between me and the pool, but still---how did I miss all of this excitement?!
What's even more amazing during today's extremely lax times: Someone is actually calling people on their obnoxious shit! Bravo, Apartment Management!
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Dixie Chicks - Sin Wagon (1999)
Shame on you for changing your name, you sheep.
The Northeastern elite media, and social media, won't love you more; and the South won't forgive you for being false.
The Chicks + Lady A
While still working from home, I usually keep on Fox Business in the background during the work-day. (Note to boss: No, I don't watch "The View"!) :)
Between segments, Fox Business usually has a song playing in the background, with the artist/title identified at upper left. A couple of days ago, I heard the Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces" playing, then looked at the screen to see the group identified as "The Chicks." The Chicks??
Confused, I went to Wikipedia:
On June 25, 2020, the band changed their name to the Chicks, dropping the word "Dixie",[98] which referenced the American Mason–Dixon line that separated the free Northern and slave-owning Southern states. The name change followed criticism that the word had connotations of American slavery.[98][99] The band said they had picked "that stupid name" as teenagers, and had wanted to change it for years; they said they were moved to change it when they saw the Confederate flag described as "the Dixie Swastika" on social media in June 2020.
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"Dixie" has, post-Civil War, meant "from the South." An identifier, a pride in heritage. I highly doubt that anyone actually thought the "Dixie Chicks" supported either slavery or the oppression of black people.
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Similarly, while trying to find out why the "Dixie Chicks" were now called "The Chicks," I came across info that a country band formerly called "Lady Antebellum" was now called "Lady A."
Again, I turned to Wikipedia for some sort of explanation:
The band members have always said that the band's name was chosen arbitrarily, complaining about the difficulty of choosing a name. Inspired by the "country" style nostalgia of a photo shoot at a mansion from the Antebellum South, they said, "one of us said the word and we all kind of stopped and said, man, that could be a name"[40] and "Man that's a beautiful Antebellum house, and that's cool, maybe there's a haunted ghost or something in there like Lady Antebellum."[41] Haywood concluded, "[We] had a lady in the group, obviously, and threw Lady in the front of it for no reason. I wish we had a great resounding story to remember for the name, but it stuck ever since."[40] The name was always controversial, with a critic in Ms. Magazine writing in 2011 that the band's name "seems to me an example of the way we still — nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War, nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act; and in a supposedly post-racial country led by a biracial president — glorify a culture that was based on the violent oppression of people of color".[41] [42]
On June 11, 2020, joining widespread commercial response to the George Floyd protests,[41] the band announced it would abbreviate its name to its existing nickname "Lady A"[43] in an attempt to blunt the name's racist connotations.[1] The band members stated on social media that, never having previously sought the dictionary definition of the word "antebellum", they now consulted their "closest black friends and colleagues" so that their "eyes opened wide to the injustices, inequality and biases black women and men have always faced and continue to face every day. Now, blind spots we didn't even know existed have been revealed."[44] Fan response was mixed, with many decrying virtue signaling or even disparaging the protests.[41] American Songwriter said, "Given that the world knows what that A stands for, to many this change does little more than add extra insult to this ongoing injury."
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As with "Dixie Chicks," why should this band apologize for the word "Antebellum" in its name? "Antebellum" refers to a time period in the southern United States (1812-1865). If this southern band was drawn to a southern Antebellum mansion, and imagined the ghost of a southern lady on its premises... Then that's what imaginatively drew them to the name. Why apologize for it? (Note that the apologizing was ridiculous, based solely on current virtue signaling---oh, and "consulting with their closest black friends." Please.)
NOTE: I couldn't stand the "Lady Antebellum" type of generic country to begin with, so when I saw that they'd changed their name to "Lady A" (and then got sued by a black singer somewhere), I didn't care about the particular band. Let the generic eat their own.
But in principle: I'm shocked by the meek, mild apologies for no reason. Dixie Chicks, I used to listen to and like.
Thursday, May 20, 2021
The Jailer (Sylvia Plath: October 17, 1962)
My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.
The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position
With the same trees and headstones.
Is that all he can come up with,
The rattler of keys?
I have been drugged and raped.
Seven hours knocked out of my right mind
Into a black sack
Where I relax, foetus or cat,
Lever of his wet dreams.
Something is gone.
My sleeping capsule, my red and blue zeppelin
Drops me from a terrible altitude.
Carapace smashed,
I spread to the beaks of birds.
O little gimlets—
What holes this papery day is already full of!
He has been burning me with cigarettes,
Pretending I am a negress with pink paws.
I am myself. That is not enough.
The fever trickles and stiffens in my hair.
My ribs show. What have I eaten?
Lies and smiles.
Surely the sky is not that color,
Surely the grass should be rippling.
All day, gluing my church of burnt matchsticks,
I dream of someone else entirely.
And he, for this subversion,
Hurts me, he
With his armor of fakery,
His high cold masks of amnesia.
How did I get here?
Indeterminate criminal,
I die with variety—
Hung, starved, burned, hooked.
I imagine him
Impotent as distant thunder,
In whose shadow I have eaten my ghost ration.
I wish him dead or away.
That, it seems, is the impossibility.
That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would he
Do, do, do without me?
When you buy one nice new thing...
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Apartment Pool Opens This Weekend!
My apartment pool has been closed for over a year, since the Covid panic, but just got a mail today that it's finally re-opening this weekend! The Panic must be officially over! And now my life must change.
I am very much looking forward to soaking up some sun and exercising just a bit, at least once a week. I have been looking/feeling quite pallid for a VERY long time. If I remember right (from pre-2020), I need to get out there somewhere between 10:45am and 11:45am---after that, annoying couples with their boom-boxes (oops---phones with loudspeakers) start showing up. And post 3:00pm, it's all kids. Official pool cut-off time is 10:00pm but, of course, there're always the annoying loud a-holes out there partying later than that---luckily, there's a whole building between me and the pool.
p.s. Just curious, re vaccines or no vaccines: How is anyone to know? Are we to start carrying ID cards? And do I want to start going in to work? I think my workplace will have an option either way. I'm torn: I'm isolated at home, yet... I like the freedom. To not wash my hair and put on makeup every day; to not have to deal with traffic every day; to be able to read a book or do laundry when there's some free time (as opposed to faking being busy whenever you're at the office and there's the same free time).
Monday, May 17, 2021
Eric Faulkner - The Frontline (2015 in Scotland)
Former Bay City Roller Eric Faulkner (my favorite when a teen) remains very attractive singing this type of hearty song in a local setting (as opposed to trying to re-live old BCR glories, where he was, for good reason, not the lead singer).
This video reminds me of seeing poets/singers in small cafes/bars (Cactus Cafe at the University of Texas, for instance) when a college student in the '80s, and being moved/inspired, especially when the poets/singers were older or past their prime: If they didn't truly love what they were doing, they wouldn't be there, doing what they had been doing when they were kids, before they ever got famous.
Your new teeth are too big for your dying face...
...Old woman whose door I only now hold open.
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I used to be able to write. Now I can only come up with a line here and there.
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Mary's Song (Plath, November 1962)
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .
A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire
Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out
Germany.
They do not die.
Gray birds obsess my heart,
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle. On the high
Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
It is a heart,
This holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will kill and eat.
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For a very long time, at least 10 years, through my '30s, I used to keep Plath's Collected Poems by my bedside, like a bible, delving in usually late-night/very early morning to try to find whatever revelation. As Ted Hughes has rightly pointed out, Plath was a Mystic rather than being any sort of "confessional" writer. Reading her, for me at least, is like taking drugs to find enlightenment.
I was therefore understandably dismayed to find the below academic take on "Mary's Song" from the genius.com site:
Sylvia Plath takes an ordinary task, cooking Sunday lunch, and finds symbolism and meaning beyond the domestic. She draws significance from the heat of a roast joint, applying it to Christianity, persecution of heretics and the Holocaust. A core idea is the contrast between a masculine deity that demands sacrifice, and maternal love as embodied in the title, clearly the Virgin Mary. Plath’s vision of the world is bleak and pessimistic— negative associations follow each other. The Eucharist is diminished to a Sunday dinner, and the Covenant between God and humankind has become deadly. Plath then applies these negatives to herself. However, though the victims of the fire do not die, implying that the process of burning has somehow transformed and purified them, the overall message is of the inevitable cycle of destruction. There is one unifying theme; holocaust.
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That is not it, at all.
Post-Magnitude
After the magnitude of Plath's struggles, as I posted below, I'm rather embarrassed to mention what's been stressing ME out for the past 2 weeks:
My online merchandise orders aren't showing up like they should! And my returns aren't being credited as they should! Oh, and today a car repair place tried to charge me $50 for a gas cap!
Little niggling things that make me feel a sense of "things not being quite as they should." (But yes, of COURSE, better that sense than a sense of "things are horribly wrong." Both, though, share the unnerving quality, to different degrees, of: Something's wrong, but I have no control over it.)
Lest I be considered shallow: In my defense, while I do seem to have a temporary respite from job/money troubles, there remains the ongoing malaise about family issues, and the ongoing existential question: Why am I always alone? Along with the knowledge that my current financial well-being could disappear in a year or two. So don't think I'm getting cocky or anything! :)
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Constant Motion
I finally finished The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 2, and one of the things that wore ME out just upon reading was all of the constant moves from home to home. For instance, for some reason, I didn't grasp until now that she just lived at her last apartment (23 Fitzroy Road in London) for a mere 2 months. And before that, at her first purchased home, Court Green in North Tawton, for only 15 months.
Nowadays, you see multiple online articles about the most stressful events in a person's life: Births, deaths, illness, separation/divorce, new job/loss of job, moving/purchasing a home. So today, and probably since the self-awareness movement of the '70s, we're all more aware of why we're feeling the crappy way we do when going through such things. But did they stop and think about that in the '50s and early '60s?
In the last 3 years of her life (early '60 to early '63), Plath had 2 births; a miscarriage and an appendectomy (and multiple serious sinus infections/fevers during which she was bedridden); separation from her husband; constant uncertainty about money because no regular job; and 3 different places to live, including a major home purchase.
Oh, and during the same exact 3-year time frame: She published her first book of poems (The Colossus) and wrote her second book of poems (posthumously published Ariel) AND wrote/published her first novel (The Bell Jar). WHILE having kids, WHILE being sick, WHILE having severe relationship problems, WHILE struggling to find freelance jobs and publishers, WHILE moving from place to place.
Even if you're young, your body/mind/spirit are just going to snap as a result of all of that. There was not a second of rest or relaxation or time for contemplation.
January 1960: Rents flat with husband Ted Hughes at 3 Chalcot Square, London.
April 1960: Daughter Frieda born.
October 1960: The Colossus published in UK.
February 1961: Miscarriage.
March 1961: Appendectomy.
Spring 1961: Begins writing The Bell Jar.
August/September 1961: Purchases and moves to Court Green, North Tawton.
January 1962: Son Nicholas born.
Summer 1962: Hughes and Assia Wevill begin affair while Plath's mother is visiting.
October 1962: Hughes leaves Court Green.
December 1962: Plath moves with babies to 23 Fitzroy Road, London.
January 1963: Bell Jar published in UK.
February 1963: Plath kills herself.
Pre-1960: Above, I used the last 3 years of her life as an example, but prior to 1960, Plath was also constantly in shifting and/or stressful situations (though, post-suicide attempt, many are just the normal experimentation of youth: who to love, where to live, what to do. Though I must emphasize: She wasn't just shuffling about as most of us do at that age! She was writing and competing for prizes and scholarships and publishing the whole time):
Summer 1953: After Mademoiselle guest intern position in NYC, attempts to kill herself.
Fall 1953: Psychiatric treatment.
January 1954: Re-enters Smith.
June 1955: Graduates Smith.
September 1955: Sails to UK to attend Cambridge.
February/June 1956: Meets/Marries Ted Hughes.
June 1957: Graduates from Cambridge, sails to US with Hughes.
September 1957: Teaches at Smith. Lives in Northampton, Mass.
June 1958: Leaves teaching position at Smith.
September 1958: Moves to Boston, works at part-time jobs.
Spring 1959: Attends Lowell's poetry course in Boston.
July-August 1959: Travels across America with Hughes, becomes pregnant.
Fall 1959: Two months at Yaddo writer's colony.
December 1959: Sails back to UK.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
George Jones: When The Last Curtain Falls (1999)
Enough already! It's incredibly sad. I knew it already. "I know it with my great tap root."
Here's a cleansing George song, released the year after Tammy Wynette's death.
For George and Tammy, Ted and Sylvia, and everyone in the whole world.
Even though I still sting from the words that you threw at me
There's no pleasure at all from watching you fall to your knees
'Cause the tables have turned
At love's angry end and we all need to know
When the last curtain falls with a final goodbye
And the bitter cold darkness of night floods the days of our lives
With a silence so loud we can't feel at all
There's no reason or cause to cheer or applaud when the last curtain falls
The irony is that you're wearing the look I once wore
And in truth I've longed for this moment to settle the score
But it's not all that clear, now that I'm hearin' you echo the thoughts of my soul
When the last curtain falls with a final goodbye
And the bitter cold darkness of night floods the days of our lives
With a silence so loud we can't feel at all
There's no reason or cause to cheer or applaud when the last curtain falls
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
When will this racist teacher be fired?
If whites can be doxed and fired for less than this, then, by all means, dox and fire this racist black woman---a teacher, no less.
Woke CIA Recruitment Video
Qualifications for a mom: "I can change a diaper with one hand and console a crying toddler with the other."
Monday, May 03, 2021
Leave Your Fucking Pet at Home!
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2019.php
According to the above site, from 2005 to 2019, dogs killed 521 people in the US. Of these deaths, pit bulls were responsible for 346 of the 521.
I don't have stats on "mere" non-lethal attacks.
I bring this up because today I went into a Nordstrom Rack store for the first time. And was startled to see a young woman and her boyfriend in the store with their pit bull.
First of all: Why are dogs even allowed in ANY store? I used to hear that it was for "emotional support" purposes, but lately that excuse has even faded away. (Kind of like "medical marijuana." Like hell you need it for "medicinal" purposes. You just want to smoke it.)
There's no reason for any pet to be in any store. I suspect it's some sort of nonsensical "virtue signalling" by the store ("Look how super-cool we are!").
I think it was in an Old Navy store last year or so when a super-friendly dog in the store jumped all over me---totally non-threatening, but WHY in the world should I, while shopping, be subjected to an animal slobbering all over me? And this particular pit bull in Nordstrom Rack today---It wasn't doing anything, yet... why was it there? Especially given this particular breed's history of violence, even when previously a perfectly nice pet.
And if dogs are allowed in stores... Why not cats on leashes? Or a rabbit on a leash? Why not gerbils in pockets? Why not snakes looped around their owners' necks? Why not? My own cats don't even want collars placed on them, and they're perfectly content at home. But I've seen cats around my apartment complex being walked on leashes. Why shouldn't such leashed cats also be allowed in stores? What if one of the dogs in a store doesn't like a cat or a rabbit in a store?
Do you see how stupid all of this is? Currently the whole situation is kept in check because non-dog pet owners aren't as ridiculously self-righteous to the point of demanding that we be able to shop with our pets. Do you see the mayhem that would ensue if cat/rabbit/gerbil/snake owners started demanding the same ridiculous "rights"?
Leave your fucking pet at home!
Saturday, May 01, 2021
Philip Larkin vs Ted Hughes
Good god, I've read so much about Ted Hughes recently that I now know about an obscure feud that ran between Hughes and Philip Larkin in the 1960s thru '80s. Sigh. The gist of it is that Hughes is the Chthonic Man and Larkin is the shallow, modern man. Hughes hated Larkin's poetry for its glibness, and Larkin hated Hughes's poetry for its alleged "myth kitty" posing (with accompanying leather jacket).
Now, I'd previously never read one word of Larkin. And I'd like to think that my deepest sensibilities run to Ted Hughes's chthonic/mythic view of things (and I like his long hair and battered leather jacket). However... A quote from a Larkin letter re Hughes at a poetry reading "...looking like a Christmas present from Easter Island." OK, that's funny. And then I did a quick search online for Larkin poems. Here's one:
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OK, that is really funny, too! And not written by an ignorant "cancel culture" dummy today but from an educated UK poetry legend born in 1922! I was very amazed and happy when I read that well-earned iconoclastic poem!
When reading Ted Hughes, on the other hand: He's not light-hearted, that's for sure. But he's the only poet who has ever made me cry (well, aside from Hardy). I like Larkin (and have just bought his poems/letters/bio so I can learn more), but I love Hughes.
