tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post524444467979902923..comments2023-10-03T11:41:21.191+01:00Comments on The Truth About Lies: A response to 'Mr Bleaney'Jim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-71355219274308114972013-03-07T11:21:44.554+00:002013-03-07T11:21:44.554+00:00Thanks for your comment, Zoey. Sorry to take so lo...Thanks for your comment, <b>Zoey</b>. Sorry to take so long to respond but your comment was awaiting moderation and I hadn’t checked there for months. (Google really could make it a bit clearer when comments need moderating.) I know what you mean about Larkin’s ‘free’ approach to writing. The thing is, when you dig into it, it’s really not that free—he was really quite an old-fashioned poet in many ways—but he hides his structure well. ‘Mr Bleaney’ has a regular rhythm and rhymes but if you read it the way it was intended to be read you’ll never see it; it could almost be prose. <br /><br />As far as “being different from yourself” as you put it, I’m a very different man to the one I was even five or six years ago. We are in a constant state of flux. I look back on poems I wrote when I was younger and find it hard to relate to the mindset of the person who wrote them and that’s how it should be.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-39408191347261219252012-08-13T15:21:48.673+01:002012-08-13T15:21:48.673+01:00I actually love the notion of being different from...I actually love the notion of being different from other people. Surely, we all have things in common with a variety of people, but against an increasinly uniform world population, being an individual who embraces the differences, enjoys them and puts them to good use is becoming more and more significant.<br /><br />But being different from yourself is also a crucial part of being different from other people. Whether it is taking different paths, growing to like different things or striving to reach your potential, I like that I have discovered a lot of new things about me, and I am different from the last year me, and probably even the last year me. The core is there, but it keeps getting enriched by the differences.<br /><br />I liked how Larkin wrote his poems freely. They are stories, and the fact that he didn't out of his way to make up unnatural rhymes made me enjoy it even more. This is also how I like my songs: stories told in a natural way, rhyming only if it is really relevant to the theme and flow.<br />pinartarhanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11708885014995824359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-10018946785156130082010-12-20T01:14:01.822+00:002010-12-20T01:14:01.822+00:00Thanks for the explanation. Now I am appropriately...Thanks for the explanation. Now I am appropriately poetically disturbed. It all makes too much sense and I think you've done a great job describing an interchange of shared pain.Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-84465850480220069182010-12-20T00:49:52.010+00:002010-12-20T00:49:52.010+00:00Every town has a ‘red light’ district, Kass, and G...Every town has a ‘red light’ district, <b>Kass</b>, and Glasgow is no different. In the late seventies the place to go was Blythswood Square or more specifically Blythswood Street. Nowadays that area is clear as far as I’m aware but it was walking down Blythswood Street in the late seventies that I saw my first honest-to-goodness prostitute. I was on the other side of the street and I saw a car draw up, terms were agreed, in she got and off they went. Glasgow’s not as bad as San Francisco but there are some steep hill in the town centre and Blythswood Street is one of them. Fire escapes, the kind you’re used to in America, are not common here, at least not in that area. <br /><br />This is one of those poems which came to me pretty much fully formed and I have no idea what generated it. William has since appeared in about a dozen other poems but nothing for a few years now; I think he and I are done with each other. I have always envisaged him as a kind of savant, a <i>Rain Man</i> kind of character, someone with special insight but at a cost. He sits on a wall and watches the cars pick up the girls and then scuttles up the fire escape and listens (rarely watches) outside the windows. The sex is meaningless to him but the sounds he can make some sense out of; he finds the lowest common denominator. <br /><br />When a child sobs all he normally needs is comfort. What is sex all about? And this is ‘having sex’ not ‘making love’ remember. I never say what the sounds are William hears – they may even be men sobbing, crying in front of a stranger because they can’t cry in front of their wives – the point is that there is something else going on here apart from adultery or fornication. Sex is what many people do when there’s nothing to do; they can’t take away the real pain in their lives so they create an artificial pain substitute and relieve it. It’s no different to picking up a hungry kid and rocking him – it’s not what he needs but it distracts him for a while.<br /><br />This is the first time I’ve tried to explain this poem. Really the poem says it all. Why does he find some comfort in the sobbing? Because there is something missing in his life. He is also frustrated just not sexually. And misery loves company. Hope this makes the poem a little clearer for you.<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-71849456232639165202010-12-19T16:11:25.756+00:002010-12-19T16:11:25.756+00:00From cheerless and bare surroundings, Larkin produ...From cheerless and bare surroundings, Larkin produced an atmosphere in his poems where we can lie where he lay.<br /><br />You've managed to do the same with your poem in this post and the one in response to Gwilym's comment.<br /><br />They both have a sweet melancholy without being too sentimental. I wonder why the sound is "like" children sobbing and not just "children sobbing." <br /><br />"...you learn a lot about a man by what he leaves behind." - What will everyone say about all your stuff and literary output?Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-84252590118530838882010-12-19T11:44:12.985+00:002010-12-19T11:44:12.985+00:00Actually, Martine, I don’t, do that. For years now...Actually, <b>Martine</b>, I <i>don’t</i>, do that. For years now we’ve had Tesco delivery our orders to the door and our ‘receipt’ is usually a couple of A4 pages but it worked for the poem, the suggestion that the old guy does his own shopping.<br /><br />I’ve never been to Hull, <b>Rachel</b> and so I’m not sure how ‘stinking’ a place it is now or might have been back then. In fact the only images I have about it come from the BBC’s episode of <i>Monitor</i> that featured Larkin and I don’t remember too much about it other than him cycling around some common ground that could be anywhere and standing around the docks and docks are docks.<br /><br />I have to say, <b>Lis</b>, I have no idea where that poem came from. As with so many things I just sat down and began it. Yes, for decades the poem has been running around my head but the idea of using it as a jumping-off point for a poem of my own never really entered into my head. I actually sat and wrote it while my wife was watching some programme on TV that wasn’t of much interest to me, <i>Masterchef</i> I think, which is unusual because I generally find it hard to concentrate when there’s talking going on like that which is why I tend to stick to orchestral music these days.<br /><br />And, <b>Dick</b>, I certainly had no intention of lampooning Larkin’s poem if that’s what you mean by ‘parody’ – I’m not trying to be humorous (except in keeping the tone of the original) or ironic – but I’m actually not sure what word I <i>would</i> use; pastiche isn’t right either. It’s really a piece of fan fiction (fan poetry?) but I don’t much care for calling it that because again that term suggests it’s not a serious piece of writing in its own right. My intention was, to use Tim Burton’s expression, to “reimagine” ‘Mr Bleaney’, to write a poem that came from the same place and yet make it my own. I’ve taken my own fears of being forgotten and used them as the basis for the piece. The real question is, does ‘House Clearance’ work on its own without any prior knowledge of ‘Mr Bleaney’? I think it does. <br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-23219832035881453612010-12-19T10:20:47.708+00:002010-12-19T10:20:47.708+00:00Yes, what a good read. A game of three thirds, rea...Yes, what a good read. A game of three thirds, really: a tour around Larkin's lodgings, which has so much to say about rental culture way back when; the profiling of 'Mr Bleaney', which, as ever, casts light everywhere; and your own parody, which works brilliantly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-62700464682052357722010-12-19T08:18:48.678+00:002010-12-19T08:18:48.678+00:00I'm a Larkin fan and even more so now, having ...I'm a Larkin fan and even more so now, having read this post, Jim. Such a wonderful potted biography of the great poet, for to me Larkin's poetry is 'great' in an understated way. <br /><br />I especially enjoy your poem here. It's 'honest' and poignant. I reverberate to the blending of identities, your father yourself, at the end of your lives, yours imagined, his now past. <br /><br />Thanks, Jim.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-87761988148649735732010-12-19T08:03:13.778+00:002010-12-19T08:03:13.778+00:00Some really humbling details in there, Jim - I enj...Some really humbling details in there, Jim - I enjoyed it, though I have a bias for all things Larkin. Much as I'd love to dislike the guy, his poetry is what counts and it's just brilliant. Clever without being show off and he manages to convey the the way that a place like Hull can stir you to escape through poetry - stunning words out of one stinking place. <br />Thanks for this.<br />Happy holidays.Rachel Fentonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10046917627054462214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-87035774204266952612010-12-19T00:26:03.813+00:002010-12-19T00:26:03.813+00:00Particularly liked the 'receipt from Tesco'...Particularly liked the 'receipt from Tesco's keeping his place'.<br />I do that:-)<br />thanks for sharing<br />martinemartinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14260048849955077472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-57323248119730137462010-12-18T10:58:13.375+00:002010-12-18T10:58:13.375+00:00I think comparing ‘Mr Bleaney’ to an O Henry story...I think comparing ‘Mr Bleaney’ to an O Henry story is quite a good comparison, <b> Gwilym</b>. The first O Henry story I ever read was in comic strip format in <i>World of Wonder</i> or something like it. It was about a couple of men who had arranged to meet something like thirty years into the future. The first to arrive gets chatting to a cop and tells him his story. After the cop leaves some more policemen arrive and arrest the man. The arresting officer hands him a note; it was from the first cop who, it turns out, was his friend but when he realised that the man was a wanted criminal couldn’t bring himself to arrest him himself. It has stayed with me all these years because now I’ve seen how lives can splinter and people get taken off in such different directions. It was the profundity that got me and I think you can say the same about Larkin’s poem.<br /><br />I’m not sure though that I could say Larkin gave me permission to write, <b>Art</b>, because I’d been writing poetry for two years before this. If anyone sparked my interest then the credit would need to go to Wilfred Owen I would say. Larkin gave me direction. ‘Mr Bleaney’ is so stripped down. Its poetry doesn’t rely on poetic techniques – even its use of rhyme gets lost – and yet it is very much a poem. What makes it a poem? That was the question I couldn’t shake. And it’s one that still fascinates me. But the goal has always been to write ‘Mr Bleaney’, my ‘Mr Bleaney’. This was the first time I thought I’d managed it. It is a poem that still produces that same uncomfortable feeling at the end, as if the floor has just vanished from underneath my feet:<br /><br /> <b>COMMON DENOMINATOR</b><br /><br /> Every evening<br /> Sweet William<br /> sits on the wall<br /> watching Stiletto<br /> and the cars<br /> creeping quietly<br /> down the street.<br /><br /> He knows her room<br /> and sometimes he<br /> kneels outside the window<br /> on the fire escape<br /> and watches through a<br /> crack in the curtain<br /> or more often just listens.<br /><br /> The sounds he likes best<br /> are like children sobbing<br /> and he understands that.<br /><br /><br /> 6 September 1981<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-27257626481240305812010-12-18T02:01:06.877+00:002010-12-18T02:01:06.877+00:00Well, I understand very well how discovering a cer...Well, I understand very well how discovering a certain poet can give one permission, as it were, to write also. Not that one imitates, but the sense of feeling enabled matters a great deal.<br /><br />For me, that poet was Jean Valentine. (I've written about that moment myself, before.) I felt like Valentine gave me permission, as it were, to write the sorts of poems that I had in my head, and that I wasn't seeing anywhere else in print. That's what got me going, that sense of feeling like I had permission to do what I wanted to do, which was different than many other kinds of poetry. (And apparently still is.)<br /><br />Again, this has been good food for thought.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-11872838240144579422010-12-17T21:49:59.848+00:002010-12-17T21:49:59.848+00:00Mr Bleaney is a favourite of mine. It's like a...Mr Bleaney is a favourite of mine. It's like an O. Henry story. There's a bleak sadness at work. The merciless treadmill claims another victim. We are lucky if we are not there. We exist somewhere between that and the well-groomed man in the National Geographic. There but for the grace of God etc.. <br />Another great read!Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-6123475407813653062010-12-17T12:54:20.621+00:002010-12-17T12:54:20.621+00:00It’s hard to shake an opinion once it’s got a hold...It’s hard to shake an opinion once it’s got a hold of you, <b>Art</b>, and, believe me, I’m not saying that everyone should feel about Larkin as I do. I like all his poetry, some more than others as you would expect, but you never forget your first love, that’s really the point I’m getting at here and I’m very grateful to Larkin for enabling me to find my own voice because I never went out of my way to copy him and I have to say it was something of a surprise to me when I got the idea for ‘House Clearance’ after all these years but then I’ve never truly understood how this inspiration thing works. <br /><br /><b>Glenn</b>, that’s what I was looking for. I read both poems to my daughter the last time she was over and she quite rightly (although I do think quite honestly) said she preferred my poem. I see what you’re saying about the ending. The point I was making was that now the man is dead it’s not simply the narrator who will never know, <i>no one</i> will even know for sure now and this includes his daughter who clearly didn’t know her father because if she had she might have cared a little more about what might have been in the room.<br /><br />And, <b>Dave</b>, that is a good point. I think that’s what I personally appreciate about Larkin’s poetry in general, there are not so many tidy endings, morals to take away and mull over. Most of the time in my life I’ve felt like I wasn’t privy to all the facts, that I was making my best guess based on available information, that if I only knew that wee bit more then I could make sense out of it all. In musical terms his poems embody an interrupted cadence – you are left waiting on the other boot falling – and I like that.<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-64292722547415683602010-12-17T11:33:33.779+00:002010-12-17T11:33:33.779+00:00I feel very much as Art expresses himself. For me,...I feel very much as Art expresses himself. For me, <i>I don't know</i> could easily apply to Larkin's poetry. I have never been able to decide about it. Sometimes it grabs me, sometimes leaves m,e cold. He certainly would never make my top ten. I do like both the poems you present - his and yours. But so far as Mr Bleaney is concerned, one swallow does not make a summer. Your post was a fascinating read, though.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-47763252197043046102010-12-17T07:15:04.472+00:002010-12-17T07:15:04.472+00:00I like your response poem. Although, pardon me for...I like your response poem. Although, pardon me for saying so, but I think "I don't know" would be a better ending than "No one will ever know." It's humble, for one thing, even if you hear "I know but I'm not telling you" ... we can hear all sorts of things, you know.Glenn Ingersollhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10674475308395975995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-21053761635491261862010-12-16T18:21:45.839+00:002010-12-16T18:21:45.839+00:00This was a very good read. It helps me understand ...This was a very good read. It helps me understand for the first time why you like Larkin so much, particularly "Mr. Bleaney," which you've mentioned before.<br /><br />It doesn't warm me up towards liking Larkin much, though. For me, Larkin may always be one of those poets who I respect for their achievement, but don't like very much to read. Perhaps that's just partly because I think his writings on jazz are so wrong-headed; particularly his condemnations of any kind of jazz outside of that which he did like.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.com