tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6705527375956860092..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Thomas Hardy: The WalkUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63467430868049422742012-10-04T22:44:41.796-07:002012-10-04T22:44:41.796-07:00"...a strange sort of gift, of rue and sadnes..."...a strange sort of gift, of rue and sadness," puts this emotion -- perhaps not that uncommon really, in later years, yet seldom spoken of -- quite beautifully.<br /><br />And -- meanwhile back in Paradox Canyon --<br /><br />their feelings<br />were unknown<br />until then<br /><br />-- also has a bit of rue in it.<br /><br />For at what moment does that knowing come? And if not now, when?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17636740557078612662012-10-04T18:30:05.453-07:002012-10-04T18:30:05.453-07:00All the comments and observations and further eluc...All the comments and observations and further elucidations by Tom add beautifully to the chord sounded by Hardy—the loss of someone close and dear; the feelings that arise from such a loss perhaps serve to replace or stand in for what is absent: a strange sort of gift, of rue and sadness, but 'an underlying sense,' a connection to the one who is not there, and can never be there again.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85485108236273233922012-10-04T13:17:52.957-07:002012-10-04T13:17:52.957-07:00At Voter Run
they stayed and prayed a bit
stood in...At Voter Run<br />they stayed and prayed a bit<br />stood in line<br />to look at the great folds<br />of tortured rocks<br />after all--<br />they had forded the small river<br />valiently<br />obeyed all the signs<br /><br />their feelings<br />were unknown<br />until then<br />it did not seem sincere<br />basically.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68002124612795534172012-10-04T13:02:06.149-07:002012-10-04T13:02:06.149-07:00The torsion of the folded rocks at Voter's Run...The torsion of the folded rocks at Voter's Run suggested the twisting of the knife of tortured retrospective emotion. There are as many sorts of dominant poetic emotion as there are poets of originality. In Hardy's case, the emotion seems to be rue, a prevailing sadness which seems to go beyond the personal to incorporate something essential in the human condition, the element of failure. There are shades of feeling we understand best, and which are evoked in the greatest particularity, through poetry.<br /><br />In a radio talk on Hardy's poetry, Larkin, looking back on his own starting-out as a poet, said:<br /><br />"When I came to Hardy it was with a sense of relief that I didn't have to try and jack myself up to a concept of poetry that lay outside my own life -- this is perhaps what I felt Yeats was trying to make me do. One could simply relapse into one's own life and write from it. Hardy brought one to feel rather than to write -- one of course has to use one's own own language and one's own jargon and one's own situations -- and he taught me as well to have confidence in what I felt I have come, I think, to admire him even more than I did then... In almost every Hardy poem in the 800 pages [of the Collected Poems]... there is a little spinal cord of thought and each has a little tune of its own, and this is something you can say of very few poets."<br /><br />Here are some of those poems:<br /> <br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-hardy-channel-firing.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-hardy-drummer-hodge.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Hardy: Drummer Hodge</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/thomas-hardy-i-look-into-my-glass.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Hardy: I Look Into My Glass</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-hardy-caged-goldfinch.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Hardy: The Caged Goldfinch</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-hardy-darkling-thrush.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Hardy: The Darkling Thrush</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12667867932279109352012-10-03T16:44:02.240-07:002012-10-03T16:44:02.240-07:00"bias in life towards unhappiness"
&quo..."bias in life towards unhappiness"<br /><br />"This kind of paradox is inseparable from poetic creation"<br /><br />"below where the seals lived, coming out of great caverns, very occassionally"<br /><br />I tried to create a Venn Diagram about the seals. I did not know what to compare them against. The middle area remained frothy, like at Devil's Churn.<br /><br />The crazy taffy and folded caramel cliffs remembered old volcanoes and maybe that's when I realized it was more like a number line, after all.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20535347197250418482012-10-03T11:24:19.995-07:002012-10-03T11:24:19.995-07:00"and I did not mind/ not thinking of you as l..."and I did not mind/ not thinking of you as left behind"<br /><br />A confession wholly stripped of histrionics. It hurts to read it.<br /><br />Hardy's regret; I think Larkin's too sharp in talking of "a sort of basic insincerity". I do understand the line of his thinking. Public regret has the feel of theatre. Nevertheless, the gesture may be necessary. <br /><br />Hardy's poetry during these years has such blinding force, I almost can't bear to read it.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48446983398897037602012-10-03T10:40:37.478-07:002012-10-03T10:40:37.478-07:00Acute observation from Mr Larkin.Acute observation from Mr Larkin.Jonathan Chanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03647746685252448938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46639807699993328502012-10-03T09:27:57.811-07:002012-10-03T09:27:57.811-07:00Hardy always makes me feel like crying. I love tha...Hardy always makes me feel like crying. I love that from Larkin--an inevitable bias in life towards unhappiness. <br /><br />And I love that tumbler in the brook . . . Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60425419761283267172012-10-03T07:56:20.112-07:002012-10-03T07:56:20.112-07:00Tom,
Could be West Marin, couldn't it? No on...Tom,<br /><br />Could be West Marin, couldn't it? No one catches that tone of "underlying sense" quite like Hardy, who on another of his walks "by the gated ways" also once leaned upon a coppice gate. . .<br /><br />10.3<br /><br />light coming into sky above still black <br />ridge, waning white moon above branches<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> proposing that it was first,<br /> that it was made that<br /><br /> makes it sound, what so far,<br /> defined at this point<br /><br />silver line of sun reflected in channel,<br />whiteness of moon in cloudless blue sky <br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-3006750104639883782012-10-03T05:49:41.040-07:002012-10-03T05:49:41.040-07:00"Despite the many years of estrangement and m..."Despite the many years of estrangement and misery, Hardy was devastated by Emma's sudden death in November of 1912. Overwhelmed by immense regret over what their life together had come to and by memories of their early happiness, especially their courting days in Cornwall, he made the long journey to Cornwall in March 1913, an arduous undertaking for a man of seventy-three, and tramped around in the mud and cold of St. Juliot and the cliffs along the coast, seeking out their old trysting places... Hardy regarded [the Poems of 1912-13] an an 'expiation'."<br /><br />-- Robert MezeyTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20876714627900774922012-10-03T05:17:51.743-07:002012-10-03T05:17:51.743-07:00beautiful thought of reminiscence and quiet mood.....beautiful thought of reminiscence and quiet mood...love the photos!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com