Philip Larkin

A lot of us do not do families well. Larkin takes it to the next level.

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Philip Larkin was born in 1922 in Coventry. His father was the city treasurer; his mother, a former schoolteacher. He had only one sibling, an older sister. The Larkins were all “rather awkward people,” the poet later remarked, “and not very good at being happy.” Although his childhood was comfortable and full of affection, his strongest emotional memories were fear and boredom. He resolved at an early age never to marry. Family life was something he “mustn’t, under any circumstances, risk encountering again.”

-- Dana Gioia, "The Greatness of Philip Larkin" in Commentary Magazine

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Cats

Coco is at my feet and I scoop her up in my arms. "It's time to pay the huggy tax. I am well again and I will be collecting, thank you very much!" It occurs to me that this is really my only source of affection, though I probably shouldn't think like this - it's a bit demoralizing. But it is what it is. Even sadder, they are cats: there ain't a lot of affection in it on their part. I miss my Bo.

Shelby Foote

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INTERVIEWER

Why do you write?

FOOTE

Freud says we write for three basic reasons: desire for fame, money, and the love of women. I don’t argue with any of those three. They’re all there. Notice he didn’t say a mumbling word about inspiration or duty or anything like that. Desire for fame, desire for money, and the love of women.

-- Shelby Foote at The Paris Review

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Gloria Stein

I just came across a great line cutting off a would-be poet at the knees. Gloria Stein said that James Laughlin was “one of those guys who has mistaken sensitiveness for something more.” I have never been able to see what Ms. Stein brings to literature, perhaps she is over my head, like James Joyce, but that observation is pure devastating power.

[Source: Dwight Garner at The New York Times]