{"id":1672,"date":"2012-08-16T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T19:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2016-01-23T18:41:44","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T17:41:44","slug":"jules-smith-looking-for-larkin-flux-gallery-press-895-cjallen-at-the-oblivion-tea-rooms-nine-arches-press-899","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672","title":{"rendered":"Jules Smith, <em>Looking for Larkin<\/em> (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago, I took my son up to Hull University. It was an open day for potential Chemistry students, but in the middle of the opening presentation, the tutor showed a slide of \u2018Hull\u2019s Three Poets\u2019.The slide was the famous picture of of Larkin, Andrew Motion and Douglas Dunn outside the University Library; it was introduced as \u2018Larkin, Motion and Christopher Reid\u2019!! Well, two out of three isn\u2019t bad, and it was good, perhaps, that the Undergraduate Admissions Tutor for Chemistry was even bothering to suggest that something other than science went on in his university. And that he knew a current \u2018famous\u2019 poet at the university!! <\/p>\n<p>A volume that announces itself as <em>Looking for Larkin <\/em>does become a hostage to fortune. And Jules Smith\u2019s beautiful new book doesn\u2019t duck the challenges. The first of those is to make a homage to Larkin, in which the identity of the writer isn\u2019t subsumed by a poet who has come to have one of the largest identities in twentieth century British poetry. Smith\u2019s own identity is one of both lyric poet and satirist. This latter allows him to create exquisitely turned satires on that Hull scene. In the two longest poems in the book, Poet\u2019s Night on the S.S. Manxman\u2019 and \u2018Deus ex Machina\u2019, Smith pokes possibly deserved fun at the members of that particular coterie. And certainly their drinking habits get a \u2018mention\u2019 in this technically adept piece.<\/p>\n<p>Larkin was, famously, the poet who wrote about the choices that life forces on us and how we do or do not have the confidence to deal with those choices. Jules Smith\u2019s lyrics are, interestingly, somewhat warmer and more robust, but share with Larkin a deep empathetic feel for the humans he observes; an empathy that Smith is also willing to explore, \u2018Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson;\/ real people, plausibly symbolic.\/ So young, so lovely; a sad plot. You can\/ touch them surely, just reach out. You cannot.\u2019 \u2018Brief Encounter\u2019. And love is not so far from the surface of Jules Smith\u2019s poems either, particularly so in a profoundly moving, deeply ambivalent elergy to his father. If Larkin\u2019s Hull is the focus of this book, that does not mask a calm, clear-sighted vision of the whole of humanity. <\/p>\n<p><em>Looking for Larkin, <\/em>though sub-titled \u2018Selected Poems\u2019 is a slim first gathering for a poet who\u2019s been writing for a long time. Daniel Lyons stark but loving black-and-white photographs of Hull complement the poems beautifully.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIan Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of years ago, I took my son up to Hull University. It was an open day for potential Chemistry students, but in the middle of the opening presentation, the tutor showed a slide of \u2018Hull\u2019s Three Poets\u2019.The slide was the famous picture of of Larkin, Andrew Motion and Douglas Dunn outside the University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[83,113,145],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A couple of years ago, I took my son up to Hull University. It was an open day for potential Chemistry students, but in the middle of the opening presentation, the tutor showed a slide of \u2018Hull\u2019s Three Poets\u2019.The slide was the famous picture of of Larkin, Andrew Motion and Douglas Dunn outside the University [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-16T19:54:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-23T17:41:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ian Pople\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ian Pople\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672\",\"name\":\"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-16T19:54:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-23T17:41:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9\",\"name\":\"Ian Pople\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Ian Pople\"},\"description\":\"Ian Pople's Spillway is published by Anstruther Press.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=21\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review","og_description":"A couple of years ago, I took my son up to Hull University. It was an open day for potential Chemistry students, but in the middle of the opening presentation, the tutor showed a slide of \u2018Hull\u2019s Three Poets\u2019.The slide was the famous picture of of Larkin, Andrew Motion and Douglas Dunn outside the University [&hellip;]","og_url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672","og_site_name":"The Manchester Review","article_published_time":"2012-08-16T19:54:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-01-23T17:41:44+00:00","author":"Ian Pople","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ian Pople","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672","url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672","name":"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95 - The Manchester Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-08-16T19:54:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-23T17:41:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1672#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jules Smith, Looking for Larkin (Flux Gallery Press) \u00a38.95"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website","url":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/","name":"The Manchester Review","description":"The Manchester Review","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/1e4c20066db3d71097155619e6d443a9","name":"Ian Pople","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif","caption":"Ian Pople"},"description":"Ian Pople's Spillway is published by Anstruther Press.","url":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=21"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2PuXo-qY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5570,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/5570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}