tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28238816.post3938223843442464662..comments2024-02-24T11:28:02.310+00:00Comments on Poetry in Progress: Marion McCreadyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04657757253873577465noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28238816.post-71965432840963687652011-07-14T14:51:35.025+01:002011-07-14T14:51:35.025+01:00yes, I'm sure you can tell a lot about a perso...yes, I'm sure you can tell a lot about a person by how and what they leave in a book...:)Marion McCreadyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04657757253873577465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28238816.post-66227304373141288802011-07-14T11:20:43.138+01:002011-07-14T11:20:43.138+01:00ah yes what a delight to read the notes in a book ...ah yes what a delight to read the notes in a book - i am now reminded that i haven't had it for some time now, i am envious - nothing like this to start a reverie about possible lives, one of the things i like best :-)<br />(though always tinged with melancholy, too, this reverie)Roxanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05650840495095863057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28238816.post-50296674688161911532011-07-14T09:47:13.768+01:002011-07-14T09:47:13.768+01:00yes he picked 'The Jaguar' for it though i...yes he picked 'The Jaguar' for it though interestingly not 'The Hawk in the Rain' or 'Pike' which is probably my favourite Hughes poem (that gorgeous "green tigering the gold"). <br /><br />as for the comments, I'm trying to imagine what on earth he means by 'Hey!' which is written next to the underlined Gunn line "But I am being what I please" ('The unsettled Motorcyclist's Vision of his Death')! <br /><br />The comment at the end of Gunn's 'On the Move' - "...steinbeck found the valley and he wrote about it the way it was in his travellings with charlie. Jardine"!<br /><br />Ahh just realised the commentator was probably referencing quotes rather than signing his name as 'Jim Scott' :)Marion McCreadyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04657757253873577465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28238816.post-5002835016915858182011-07-14T04:30:06.478+01:002011-07-14T04:30:06.478+01:00I love used bookshops (but who doesn't?) and r...I love used bookshops (but who doesn't?) and reading the marginal notes and inscriptions in old books. "For my beautiful Hildegard, at the beginning of our great love" -- and then you try to imagine how Hildegard came to unload the gift for a few pennies as used merchandise....<br /><br />I admire Thom Gunn's early work, a poet of true formal power in the '50s and '60 (at some interesting pivotal distance between Auden and Larkin), before he came to the US and became sloppy and self-indulgent. I would say that he was one of those poets for whom confinement, both formal and social, results in better poetry (though it can sure be destructive for the life of the poet).<br /><br />As for early Hughes, I agree that "Horses" is a better poem than "The Thought-Fox," though I can see how that poem was important. "Hawk in the Rain" and "The Jaguar" are very fine poems in that first book. In his second book, also pre-1962, I've always had a personal fondness for "Mayday on Holderness," though I'm not sure I could make any persuasive defense against other, better known poems in that book. Still, "the nightlong frenzy of shrews"!James Owenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07614935078978354375noreply@blogger.com