Philip Larkin, The Complete Poems
Edited by Archie
Burnett
Copyright 2012 by
The Estate of Philip Larkin
Farrar, Straus
and Giroux
Hardbound, 729 pages, $40.00
ISBN 978-0-374-12696-4
Review by Zvi A. Sesling
You get a book of
collected poems and think you have everything by that poet. But the new Philip
Larkin, The Complete Poems edited by Archie Burnett is the penultimate book
that every Larkin fan (and even those not totally familiar with his poetry)
will want to have in his or her library. In fact, Burnett points out in his
introduction the failures of previous editions of Larkin’s poetry.
One thing about
the British and certain academicians is their ability to dredge up every bit of
minutiae on a given subject. And this is what makes Burnett’s Larkin collection
complete. Burnett has seemingly plumbed
everything and anything extant on Larkin and crammed it into this volume.
Purists believe
that publishing material an author chose not to publish is overstepping because
he [Larkin] either had some reason not to publish them or felt they were not of
sufficient merit to see in print. Yet, by choosing to do so Burnett has
revealed a Larkin who is complete, that is to say, we gather new insights into
a poet who ranks among England’s favorites both in his lifetime and after.
Burnett, however,
does not stop merely with poems, he adds 339 pages of text notes that
trace nearly
every source Larkin can be shown to have drawn on, and even, according to
a publicity
piece, may have half-consciously drawn on.
Just published,
this book is worth every cent, and includes poems from The North Ship, The Less Deceive, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. Also included are other
poems published in Larkin’s lifetime and poems not published in his lifetime as
well as undated or approximately dated poems.
These are followed by commentary on the poems and appendices which
include Larkin’s early collections of his poems, dates of compositions and
finally an index of titles and first lines.
Burnett is
co-director of the Editorial Institute and professor of English at Boston
University. And this marvelous
undertaking will be hard for anyone to improve on and lovers of poetry owe him
a grand thank you for this work.
Why is Larkin
loved? He had an ability to put class in its place and academicians in theirs,
witness the following:
Epigram on an
Academic Marriage
You see that man?
He has a month-old wife
He married from
emotional cupidity,
Hoping she’d ‘put
him into touch with Life’—
Now finds all
she’s in touch with is stupidity.
Or this view of
age:
Long Sight in Age
They say eyes
clear with age,
As dew clarifies
air
To sharpen
evenings,
As if time put an
edge
Round the lost
shape of things
To show them
there;
The many-levelled
trees,
The long soft
ties of grass
Wincing away, the
gold
Wind-ridden vanes
– all these,
They say, come
back to focus
As we grow old
These are but two
short poems in a book full of magnificent poetry, a number of them quite
longer. And as you read them remember that he never married and was quite
anti-social, according to some sources I have read. Yet Larkin’s ability to touch cords is what
will make you love this book as much as I do.
Very Highly Recommended.
_________________________________________________
Zvi A. Sesling
Author, King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street,
2010) and Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 20110)
Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review
Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 7
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