The Whitsun Weddings – Philip Larkin – Analysis

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The Whitsun Weddings is the first poem by Philip Larkin in his collection of that name.

I have been reading Clive James’ ‘Poetry Notebook’ and this is one of his five favourite poetry collections the others being – Richard Wilbur (Poems 1943-1956), W. H. Auden (Look Stranger! 1936), Robert Frost (Collected Poems) and W. B. Yeats (The Tower, 1928).

Considering The Whitsun Weddings – There are eight ten line stanzas. The poem’s rhyming scheme is – abab (Shakespearian quatrain) followed by cdecde (Petrachan sestet).

The first two stanzas …

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river’s level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

The poem is about a train journey in England on a hot Whitsun weekend in June 1954. If you read these lines aloud you will get into the ‘clickity-clack’ rhythm as you follow the syllabic track of the words. I consider the journey as one from Hull to London and if you ever traveled by steam train through England in those years you would identify with the created imagery.

Stanzas three and four …

At first, I didn’t notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what’s happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewelry-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochers that

In these two stanzas we see that out of the lethargic heat (sun destroys/
The interest of what’s happening in the shade) something is happening at each station. The sounds of gaiety (considered as noise) are initially thought to be porters larking around with the mail in fact it is wedding parties seeing bride and groom depart – perhaps to a honeymoon in London. Larking about is a nice pun on Larkin himself who was probably in the clouds in word thought taking time to be arrested on what was going on around him.

Stanzas five and six …

Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafes
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

He now takes close notice at each marriage farewell and there is some generalisation … a happy funeral is that nice contrast in the death of one life and the start of another … weddings being a happy occasion, however a mother may lament at no longer having a daughter at home – on the other hand she may be glad to have her married. Marriage considered a religious wounding – words that marry with that famous arrow-shower in the last line – and typical Larkin negativity however realistic.

Stanzas seven and eight …

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
—An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl—and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

Twelve marriages – brides and grooms – hopefully they wouldn’t be considering all the others they would never meet – having stated religiously that they have met their one and only – nor indeed would they be thinking of how life had now been contained by their commitment to each other.

The last two sentences bring the journey to a close and all the young lovers disappear into the clouds never to be seen again in an arrow-shower. Larkin obviously thinks there are stormy times ahead and the arrows of Eros (love and Cupid) become the arrows of Mars—the arrows of war, shot by a body of archers. (Apparently Philip Larkin claimed he discovered the idea in Laurence Olivier’s film of Henry V.)

But out of the storm comes rain and rain has that nice rejuvenating effect on nature. It is nice to know that Larkin thinks marriage is environmentally friendly!

Clive James states that although there may not be much ‘joy in Larkin’ he does get ‘the whole truth of life’s transience into unforgettable beautiful poetry, and it is hard to think of a greater joy than that’.

Wikipedia link 

Dover Beach – Matthew Arnold – Analysis

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The following are my thoughts on the well-known poem ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) –

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in. ……….…………………. 14

S1 … Lines 1 – 14 …

The first sentence is factual describing the scene. It looks like a full moon on the straits of water which separate Dover and Calais. It is evening and the light fading in the west towards France. Whether the French coastline is actually visible is debatable – it is a distance of 21 miles and conditions must be favourable – but in contrast the Dover Cliffs are outstanding if you forgive the pun! But it is a peaceful tranquil setting bathed in moonlight (I like – moon-blanched).

The second sentence is a personal invitation to come to the window to see the scene. Matthew Arnold was at Dover twice and in 1851 when this was written he was newly married so it could have been an invitation to his wife to come to the window. But this does not matter what he wants to point out in the sweet night air is the continual push of the waves as they draw back and then fling forward with grating roar – for Mathew Arnold this is an eternal note of sadness.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea ………………………. 20

S2 … Lines 15 – 20 …

The sound of the sea gave thoughts to the Greek Playwright Sophocles. Sophocles likened the swelling tide to the continual ruin that could be passed on by the Gods from one generation to the next in his play Antigone. This might link in to Arnold’s own melancholic mood and his statement on eternal sadness. But from this Arnold now moves to his own personal thoughts prompted by the grating action of the sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world. …………………………. 28

S3 … lines 21 – 28 …

It looks like there was a time when faith was easy and comfortable to his being – but now the situation is different and he finds his faith-foundation-stone eroded. It helps to know that Matthew Arnold, an inspector of schools, was a deeply religious person and in 1851 when this was probably written the world was in upheaval. Rapid change was taking place not only from industrialisation but in the understanding of life through the advancement of science and especially the birth of evolutionary thought through Darwin. I like that word shingles because apart from being a reference to the beach-pebbles it is a nasty medical condition – a great irritation to the skin. Of course in this context Arnold is threatened by change and is experiencing a mental irritation.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night …………………. 37

S4 … lines 29 – 37 … Apparently he may have been on his honeymoon and in the first two lines he could have been talking to his new wife=love. Despite the down sliding world (the darkling plain) it is important to be true to one another – a concentration on the micro personal world where there is some control. I see this as a glimmer of light in his depressed state. And as we enter a new year with the horrors of the world continually brought to our attention by the media such advice might be relevant today.

The last line really wraps it all up, my interpretation – Matthew Arnold is in a state of unresolved thinking … the two armies at large the old world concepts and the challenge of the new … both of course are ignorant armies … a unresolved chaotic state of affairs and at night we don’t always see things too clearly.

It is also worth noting that this free-verse poem is a clear break from the poetic expression of his day … so in a sense he has already advanced to new thinking in the development of this poem.

From the analysis of this poem on Wikipedia … The metaphor with which the poem ends is most likely an allusion to a passage in Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian War (Book 7, 44). He describes an ancient battle that occurred on a similar beach during the Athenian invasion of Sicily. The battle took place at night; the attacking army became disoriented while fighting in the darkness and many of their soldiers inadvertently killed each other.

Note … Matthew Arnold remained a believer in God and religion, although he was open to—and advocated—an overhaul of traditional religious thinking. In God and the Bible, he wrote: “At the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.”

Passengers are reminded – Melinda Smith – Analysis

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Geoff+Melinda

Canberra Poets Melinda Smith and Geoff Page at the ACT Writers Christmas Party, Gorman House, Canberra

Closing the year with a post recognizing the outstanding achievement of Canberra poet Melinda Smith who recently took-out a major poetry award – the Prime Ministers Award for Poetry with her book ‘Drag Down to Unlock or Place an Emergency Call’.

Looking at the first poem in that publication ‘Passengers are reminded’… my commentary appears below the text.

Passengers are reminded

The 11.44 Emu Plains service will depart in six minutes … L1
a cigarette butt is stuck to the black spiked heel of my left shoe … L2
L1-2 … the announcement of the imminent departure is synchronised with this passenger noticing that her shoes have spiked a cigarette butt – perhaps implying concern for her dress.
This service is experiencing a slight delay due to a sick customer at Town Hall … L3
in L3 we see that there will be delay … concern for a different passenger on another station
I have been carrying the lilies too long … L4
in L4 the waiting passenger is more concerned about the lilies she is carrying – so there is some urgency in the matter
This service is experiencing continuing delays due to a sick customer at Town Hall … L5
the petal edges fray to bruised brown, like old lettuce … L6
L5-6 extents the situation in each direction greater delay/ greater urgency – reflected in the state of the lilies
Customers wishing to travel on the Western line are advised to proceed to platform twelve … L7
my black stockings are bunched and twisted … L8
L7 appears to be incidental and the waiting passenger is again concerned about her dress this time her twisted stockings in L8
Customers are reminded … L9
The 13.00 funeral service … L10
will commence promptly at the appointed time … L11
whether I am there or not … L12
L9-12, appear to be a thought response back to the platform announcer … the service that she wants to attend is a funeral service – it is something one could easily do while waiting – especially if a little annoyed at the delay – re: ‘whether I am there or not’.
This is the 12.09 Lithgow service … L13
First stop – … L14
Rust-coloured crumbs of lily pollen on my black suit … L15
L13-14 give more incidental train announcements– but the focus is on her dress and the crumbs of lily pollen in L15
– then all stations to – … L16
my mind is still not full enough … L17
L16 – the continuing incidental announcement on the Lithgow service is in the background … to the exasperation of the passenger asking the telling question in L17- my mind is still not full enough– the question being how much longer must she fill her mind with distracting thoughts before the bloody train arrives!
Doors closing. Please stand clear. … L18
L18 – I think this is a very clever three-way closure – closure in the train announcement, closure in what she is saying in her mind-dialogue (L13), and closure to the poem.

Melinda Smith 2013

Summary

I love the duality of the interplay between a passenger waiting for a train and the station announcements on the train service. And who has not been in a similar situation. Expecting a train to arrive on time only to be thwarted by continual delay. Well, what do you do while you are waiting … talk with others, go for coffee, look at the station Ads, play with your mobile or just stand in thought … and what you think at the time may not always be poetic if annoyed at having to wait!

In the publication there are gaps of blank lines between lines. I think this is intentional to highlight the waiting situation experienced on the station. In other poems of this nature it is common to differentiate voices using italics or changes in font. By not doing this it adds to the mystery of the station environment and it leaves the poem open to different interpretation. The last line also adds some mystery in that we don’t actually know if this is her train and she is about to enter. But does this really matter? A good poem should always make the reader think.

In that regard others that have reviewed this poem have commented that the poem is a ‘memento mori’  poem – a reminder of death and mortality ‘Passengers are reminded’. Life being a journey. And that we try to fill our mind with other things to avoid thinking about death. This is the reason there are lines with incidental ‘noise’ and why the penultimate line is ‘my mind is still not full enough’ – seeing the waiting woman as one who does not want to think about death and the death of the person. But the final line makes it clear that there is no avoiding the inevitable separation – with every death the doors close and the rest of us just have to stand clear.

I must admit I had not thought of the poem in that light concentrating my focus on her need to be at the funeral and perhaps not being able to say her final good-bye in the company with friends.  But taking this direction it is certainly not her actual train that is moving off and the woman continues to wait – whether or not thinking of her own mortality in the meantime.

A wonderful thought provoking poem to include as the first poem in Melinda’s book.

Here is a link to Melinda’s Blog with more information on this poem … http://melindasmith.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/passengers-are-reminded/

Not just a birthday! – Some Christmas Day Words 2014

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XmasPresents

If I could roll

If I could roll with all my strength
all the love in this wide world
I’d gather it up into one sweet ball
to give to eight children deserving more.

But these children are no more
their presents unopened on the floor.

Remembering the eight children who died last week at the hands of a disturbed mother in Cairns, Queensland – and as the mother is still alive she is one person who is very much in need of prayer.

Christmas Day

not just a birthday
but the birth of life eternal!
never forgotten

Enjoy life, enjoy Christmas, enjoy this special day with all your family and friends.

Richard Scutter

The Latest Forecast – Predicting Life

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The Goat

The Latest Forecast

today will be fine with
temperatures in the low twenties
at 9:00am cloud will build up but
the sun will break through by 10:00am
to a full rich blue sky

just after mid-day clouds from the south
will enter with the chance of just a little rain
expect about 3-4mm in the form of light drizzle
if you live in suburbs to the west of Main Street
expect only a touch of moisture

the skies will be totally clear again by 3:00pm
the mild temperatures will continue …

early this morning Mr R G
who always takes his dog for a walk first-thing
was seen walking back home along Ocean Road
accompanied by a well-endowed billy goat
currently there is no explanation …

Richard Scutter 16 December 2014

We will never be able to predict what will happen to us in life.

In the day after the ‘Sydney Seize’ I pray that we will always have the resources within to deal with any situation that befalls us.

Summer – Judith Wright : Analysis

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Summer is here again and already we have had a few very hot days in Canberra. This poem by Judith Wright relates to Edge, her former home in Braidwood, and to the Australian summer and how nature must accommodate the disturbance by man and the effect of bush fire. It was written towards the end of her life.

Summer

This place’s quality is not its former nature
but a struggle to heal itself from many wounds.
Upheaved ironstone, mudstone, quartz and clay
drank dark blood once, heard cries and the running of feet.
Now that the miners’ huts are a tumble of chimney-stones
shafts near the river shelter a city of wombats.
Scabs of growth form slowly over the rocks.
Lichens, algae, wind-bent saplings grow.
I’ll never now it’s inhabitants. Evening torchlight
catches the moonstone eyes of big wolf-spiders.
All day the jenny-lizard dug hard ground
watching for shadows of hawk or kookaburra.
At evening, her pearl-eggs hidden, she raked back earth
over the tunnel, wearing a wide grey smile.
In a burned-out summer, I try to see without words
as they do. But I live through a web of language.

from Judith Wright Collected Poems – The Shadow of Fire (Ghazals)

JW shows strong identity to the land commenting on the effects of man  … a land which drank dark blood once … the killing of Aborigines … and a land once  subject to mining … her words describe the attempted recovery by nature  … the attempt to revert to previous conditions – which of course can never happen.

JW also shows strong empathy with the natural environment … with knowledge of local animals and insects seen at Edge. The environment adjusts to the disturbance by man … shafts near the river shelter a city of wombats … and the environment must adjust to the destruction of nature by bush fire … suggesting this is a greater problem …  trying to see without words … … creating words always detracts … many survivors of bush fires would identify with the intensity of thought conveyed by such words.

… it is fascinating to see how diversity manifests through continual evolution … species adapting to changes to environment and the resultant changes to other species … the total connectivity of life as it creates a future by the process of the survival of the fittest … or put another way survival by those best able to adapt to change.

… now this may be Ok when evolution is gradual, although of course some species become extinct, but what happens to this evolutionary process under sudden dramatic disturbances, humanity-made or not … and more important how can humanity act to ‘better the evolutionary process’ … humanity being the prime custodian of the world … having the key role in the very determination of the nature of existence. Global warming is of course one consideration for attention.

… there may of course be other influences at play in the evolutionary process such as spiritual connectivity … but a little foolish and quite a cop-out to think that God will protect the world from destruction … however this could become an indirect truth … if humanity allows God to work through humanity … by humanity listening and responding as appropriate.

… I really love the first two lines … This place’s quality is not its former nature / but a struggle to heal itself from many wounds … the quality of nature is in its resilience and ability to adapt to change and to heal … I am an an optimist of course.

Here is a link to the ‘Braidwood property Edge’ where Judith Wright lived.

and a link  to Judith Wright on Wikipedia

The Uncertainty of the Poet – Wendy Cope – Analysis

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Wendy Cope wrote the poem below in response to viewing a painting of the same name by surrealist artist Giorgio de chirico . Here is an image of the painting. The statue is the torso of Aphrodite (and a link to more detail).

UncertaintyPoet

The Uncertainty of the Poet (by Wendy Cope)

I have annotated her lines with my comments.

I am a poet,

I am very fond of bananas.

Wendy Cope is a poet and by the look of things she very much likes bananas. Now this poem was written in conjunction with the above painting – a female statue and a hand of bananas. So we could easily equate the first sentence response with these objects.

I am bananas,
I am very fond of a poet.

Personifying bananas is certainly very poetic … and from the bananas point of view they are very touched by her fondness – a strong two-fold link.

I am a poet of bananas.

Indeed she is a poet of bananas … just as the artist portrayed bananas in his work.

I am very fond.

… perhaps she considers herself very loving, affectionate, caring

A fond poet of ‘I am, I am’ –

Very bananas.

… it is very true that many poets are ‘very fond I am’ sort of people … but the next phrase denigrates any infatuation

Fond of ‘Am I bananas?
… and to stress the point such fondness for herself could send her … well you know where bananas will take you!

Am I? – a very poet.

Well I certainly think she is a ‘very poet’! … but it’s always good to question oneself and indeed ask it of others!

Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond? Am I very?

The thought of being bananas of a poet … well that certainly needs an exclamation mark. But is she caring? … is she very (caring)? … well we have uncertainty … the uncertainty of person as well as poet

Poet bananas! I am

Forget poetry – ‘I am’ and that’s what matters! – how true

I am fond of a ‘very’.
She perhaps is one of those rare persons who always likes doing her best!

I am of very fond bananas.
In a poetic sense this statement is so true!

Am I a poet?

This question must be answered by the reader!

Wendy cope

There are only eight unique words in the entire poem – a wonderful play on words – perhaps a little ‘dadaism’ is in evidence.

My thoughts on looking at the painting … there are obviously two key objects … one representing ‘Art’ (and I will include poetry under that label – especially given the title of the painting) … the other very much down to earth … day to day living – something we can easily digest and recognise. Something we can internalise in a very real way but disappears from sight very quickly. The torso as an artistic object is more permanent but more difficult to digest (excuse the pun). And indeed what can be more permanent than the manifestation of love represented by the torso of Aphrodite. The artist/poet is always uncertain on how his or her art will be received and always uncertain about the quality of work and about living up to any personal expectations.