tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post3240244478022489387..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "The Poetry Of Almost Infinitely-Qualified States Of Mind": Philip Larkin And Edward ThomasStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-56745353043461110582011-05-23T13:45:50.563-07:002011-05-23T13:45:50.563-07:00Thank you, PAL -- it is always a pleasure to hear ...Thank you, PAL -- it is always a pleasure to hear your thoughts. Here is another example from ET (at the end of the poem to his wife Helen about what he would give her, if he could): <br /><br />And myself, too, if I could find<br />Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.<br /><br />It sounds like something that Larkin could have written, doesn't it? Just as the final lines of Larkin's "Talking in Bed" sound (I think) like they could have been written by ET:<br /><br />Words at once true and kind,<br />Or not untrue and not unkind.<br /><br />I like the comment about Amis -- I hadn't heard it before.<br /><br />Thanks again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-3389993874834435182011-05-23T12:12:03.418-07:002011-05-23T12:12:03.418-07:00Mr Pentz: Thanks for another interesting thought-p...Mr Pentz: Thanks for another interesting thought-provoker.<br /><br />I think you're right. The kind of thinking going on in the last stanza of the ET poem, the pernicketiness about getting it just right puts me also much in mind of PL - and also of his pal K Amis, whose prose was once compared - I can't remember by whom - to backing an articulated truck into a narrow opening.PALhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16213913134351463538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-61245286209147136312011-05-23T08:19:25.164-07:002011-05-23T08:19:25.164-07:00Mr. Sigler: as always, thank you for your thoughts...Mr. Sigler: as always, thank you for your thoughts. As for Thomas's "almost infinitely-qualified states of mind," it is said that Frost wrote "The Road Not Taken" as a gentle, humorous comment on his friend Thomas's habit of second-guessing the route that Thomas chose when he and Frost went for walks together in England.<br /><br />Thanks again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-34129002313542215692011-05-23T08:13:39.217-07:002011-05-23T08:13:39.217-07:00Mary F.C. Pratt: thank you for dropping by again. ...Mary F.C. Pratt: thank you for dropping by again. Yes, I can see what you mean -- although Thomas's poem, unlike Yeats's, contains that interesting twist at the end.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-52643400816510346552011-05-22T08:29:15.279-07:002011-05-22T08:29:15.279-07:00I must admit I have no idea what "almost infi...I must admit I have no idea what "almost infinitely qualified states of mind" are, but I love the Thomas poem, the way the detail becomes the scope and through the magic of poetry just keeps widening, and also how the Larkin poem in a real way seems to commune with it.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-41887567094313914252011-05-22T04:15:38.610-07:002011-05-22T04:15:38.610-07:00Somehow I'm reminded of the "Lake Isle of...Somehow I'm reminded of the "Lake Isle of Innisfree."Mary F. C. Pratthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18208459186091082616noreply@blogger.com