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There’s something of a frisson going on about the fact that a ‘discovered’ new poem by Larkin turns out to be one that was written by another poet living in Hull, Frank Redpath.<\/p>\nThere’s something of a frisson going on about the fact that a ‘discovered’ new poem by Larkin turns out to be one that was written by another poet living in Hull, Frank Redpath.<\/p>\n
Here’s a Frank Redpath poem for those of you that don’t have on your shelves his rather good collection How It Turned Out<\/em> (Rialto, 1996, edited by John Wakeman with an Introduction by Sean O’ Brien). I think it’s easy enough to see how the poets could be mistaken for one another. They share a preoccupation with the mundane, make sharp observations of the ordinary, and both have that anxiety that life might consist entirely of dullness which was, I think, a feature of the 50s. Something I suspect to do with wanting to bury the horror of the war and the simultaneous flight from the guilt that it had all been rather exciting? Forgive the psychobabble. Here’s a poem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n COMING TO<\/strong><\/p>\n Remembering purpose suddenly, hearing the clock, Always a shock, but it soon passes. Why, It seems to fill their time. Why shouldn’t he Some timeless tide retreating, leaving the pier <\/p>\n Frank was a likeable bloke. He and John Wakeman had been poetry buddies and then friends from the time when John worked as librarian in London. Frank would take the train journey from Hull to Norwich several times a year and could then be found, glass of red wine in one hand, cigarette in the other, in the Wakeman’s kitchen, laughing and gossiping.<\/p>\n I think he wore his angst more lightly than Larkin could, maybe had a bit more hope in the soul mix. I’m not sure about Larkin, I feel there’s a coldness in him, something Pharisaical \u2013 though that might just be his voice, standard BBC Third Programme enunciation (something that was somewhat swept away by Ted Hughes’ reading style). I wondered about typing in at this point Frank’s poem ‘Miss White’, but it’s a poem about a cat ( I have to admit it is good) and I made a resolution about steering clear of cat poems. So here’s a short, terrific, poem that I think should be widely anthologized.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n LYRIC<\/strong><\/p>\n Something is happening that never, ever, Give me just this, he thought, let me for ever M.M.<\/p>\n
\nIs always to be lifted from that sailing
\nUtterly unintentioned elsewhere; looking,
\nFeel, between tick and yes-I-thought-so tick,
\nFrank recognition wheedling you to share
\nWhatever reach-me-down events surround you there.<\/p>\n
\nThere’s Mrs Body-Language from Dun Brown
\nTaking her dogs out for a crap; that clown
\nWho always parks his car with one wheel high
\nMounting the kerb; lumping from tree to tree,
\nThat lass who jogs and jogs so earnestly.<\/p>\n
\nWho sits here, vacant in a cooling car,
\nGet out and do as they do? Check the doors,
\nMarch up the path, go in and make some tea?
\nHe will. He always has. But not without, untrained,
\nThe sense of some huge ocean being drained,<\/p>\n
\nGrey, mussel-crusted, drying; tilted smacks
\nNewly defined and useless; weathered rocks
\nDisarmed, reduced to holding rock-pools; gear
\nFor loading, launching, signalling left dry:
\nAnd more time left than these can justify.<\/p>\n
\nHappened to anyone before, he thought.
\nThis is the moment when the sudden river
\nBreaks through the rocks to flow and end the drought.
\nSitting straight-backed upon the bedside chair,
\nShe took pins from her lips and fixed her hair.<\/p>\n
\nBe sitting here with this, without a thought.
\nIce ages come to freeze the flowing river,
\nStill ponds surround us both to cool the drought.
\nTaking each eye in turn, she painted it
\nUsing a brush, a block of black, and spit.<\/p>\n