'An Enormous Yes'
Philip Larkin - Poetry, Politics, Love and Jazz - Ian Smith
Ian Smith [+]
Writer, Broadcaster and Musician
Description
The poem “For Sidney Bechet” merits a chapter of its own. Its account of the possible meanings and resonances of jazz is more than a commentary on Bechet; it is declaration of what the voice of love should be, and of what the best of art can achieve. The poem is not only a corrective to those who see Larkin only as a negative poet; the supposed laureate of romantic disappointment and “books are a load of crap”. It is also an affirmation of Larkin’s belief in jazz and of a wider belief in what culture should do. The scope of the poem’s ambition is indicated by the fact that it is written in Terza Rima. No poet writing in the 20thC would submit to the complex Dantescan verse form without a conscious aspiration to literary and even theological seriousness.