A quite glorious walk last Thursday afternoon went round Thorney Island and ended at the Sussex Brewery. It seemed like a sea fret that gathered around us but by the next day it had been explained as more of that Sahara dust we get occasionally. But, once it cleared, it was midsummer without too much of the heat, which is fine. However much one's allegiance crosses over to long, dark winter nights, a clear summer's day without too much of the heat still has its glorious advantages.
The walk had all the things a good walk needs which are good company, nearby water and preferably a flat profile. A good pub at the end is, of course, a good idea. But Thursday also benefitted from an old church with picturesque cemetery, good weather and a dog. It would be unreasonable to even try to think of anything else it ought to have had.--
A question on University Challenge recently was formed around a quote from the great Joseph Brodsky,
The only things which poetry and politics have in common are the letters P and O.
and although I rarely learn much from quizzes, forgetting the correct answers almost as soon as I've heard them, I will remember that, and hope to use it. But if not, at least I've used it here. It's surely not for me to notice they both contain the letter T as well.
Many will not agree and many of them will be among those who use poetry, or, more likely, verse, as a vehicle for their politics. And I still have some sympathy for the Marxist idea that 'everything is political', which I take to mean if you're not political, you're not Marxist and thus wrong. But that looks very much the same emotional blackmail that some forms of Christianity like to use in saying that if you were Christian you'd be saved but if you're not then it is hell fire and eternal damnation for you.
You can see why people went to church regularly in olden days.
Larkin is still regarded as right wing, and why not, but I'm not sure how much evidence there is for that in his poetry. Tom Paulin's old accusation that At Grass was a lament for lost empire doesn't look so convincing in hindsight even if it must have looked like vital cultural analysis at the time.
I've often wondered how the short sentence,
Snow fell undated.
from An Arundel Tomb could possibly be political.
Oh, but, he has removed the snow from its dialectical period, the specific hardships inflicted by that snow on the proletariat in that time and place. By making it 'undated', Larkin has deliberately abnegated the political significance of that snow.
But, now we have not just anybody, but Brodsky, on our side if we ever want to point out that poetry is a different thing from politics. I've learnt something from University Challenge and it has confirmed my assumption that poetry is above and beyond politics, like the snow, or one would prefer it to be.
