It comes as no surprise that the Guardian has done something excellent, and while it’s entirely possible that most everyone is already aware of what’s going on over there, it is so fantastic that it’s worth pointing out just in case. That link will take you to the new(ish) Guardian series “Great poets of the 20th century,” where the paper has not only chosen its top seven poets of the previous hundred years, but commissioned insightful introductions by major writers and offered an array of the poets’ work. For free. On the internet.

True, it’s the online extension of a series of small books they’re publishing, presumably to celebrate the brilliance of their decision to do a series on great poets in a newspaper. But it’s nevertheless a wonderful collection, and you should get directly to it if you find yourself in need of some Hughes, Plath, Eliot, Sassoon, Heaney, Auden, or, best of all (for me at least), Larkin.

Around the time everyone realized that Philip Larkin the man was a misogynistic bigot, people stopped liking Philip Larkin the poet. Despite the obvious problems of judging an artist’s work by his or her personal unpleasantness, this hating-on-Larkin policy has, in my own anecdotal experience, taken firm root, even among people who otherwise would be predisposed to Larkin’s particular brand of quasi-formalist lyric poetry.

This sort of dismissal comes in waves, and will likely fade with time. But the best corrective is exposure to the poetry itself, which is frequently perfect and almost always moving. (more…)