Mary Oliver? Donald Hall? Jane Kenyon? Serious and popular.
I like Larkin's poetry, and I've generally made my peace with separating the artist from the art. But I am seriously bothered by the idea that just pretending to hate people somehow makes things better. I do not know what kinds of things Larkin said in his letters, and therefore the rest of this reply may or may not apply to him.
As for bigotry as performance -- yeah, I'm familiar with this kind of posturing. Almost all of us have done it one way or another -- my genre was, is, usually threatening sensational forms of violence toward a miscreant when there was and is no chance I'd raise a nonconsensual hand to anybody. H.L. Mencken's letters to George Sterling (and vice versa) are sickening with their boasting about exploits sexual and alcoholic. Probably exaggerated, but maybe not.
But I believe that the type and targets of such posturing indicate something important about the individual. Performing bigotry ironically or rhetorically or to impress someone is even nastier than sincere, heartfelt bigotry, IMO. Sure, it's probably a defense against being thought unmanly or oversensitive, but such defenses perpetuate the aspects of culture that invoked them. Also, by definition, the faux-bigot knows better.
It can also be damaging. Not every guy who makes rape jokes or grumbles about Those People will ever rape or lynch or assassinate someone, but the atmosphere of hostility gets worse and worse, and that does have effects on the targets. The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest, but the frogs die in earnest.
no subject
I like Larkin's poetry, and I've generally made my peace with separating the artist from the art. But I am seriously bothered by the idea that just pretending to hate people somehow makes things better. I do not know what kinds of things Larkin said in his letters, and therefore the rest of this reply may or may not apply to him.
As for bigotry as performance -- yeah, I'm familiar with this kind of posturing. Almost all of us have done it one way or another -- my genre was, is, usually threatening sensational forms of violence toward a miscreant when there was and is no chance I'd raise a nonconsensual hand to anybody. H.L. Mencken's letters to George Sterling (and vice versa) are sickening with their boasting about exploits sexual and alcoholic. Probably exaggerated, but maybe not.
But I believe that the type and targets of such posturing indicate something important about the individual. Performing bigotry ironically or rhetorically or to impress someone is even nastier than sincere, heartfelt bigotry, IMO. Sure, it's probably a defense against being thought unmanly or oversensitive, but such defenses perpetuate the aspects of culture that invoked them. Also, by definition, the faux-bigot knows better.
It can also be damaging. Not every guy who makes rape jokes or grumbles about Those People will ever rape or lynch or assassinate someone, but the atmosphere of hostility gets worse and worse, and that does have effects on the targets. The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest, but the frogs die in earnest.