Just thank you for writing this, which I’d saved but not read. I’m just beginning to read into Macneice & his poetry is so good. Someone put me onto the last poems, published in 1963 after his death. The Burning Perch. It’s on Internet Archive. Some of the poems in there are extraordinarily good. Soapsuds, The Taxis. (Lots.) And Summer with Monika had a very particular meaning for me, too, one summer when I was 19. So - thank you, Sarah.
I read it all through again just now - they are such good poems, aren't they. I love them both. And I was 19 when a boy bought me Summer with Monika - was yours called Julian? wink wink
Thanks for reminding me of Roger McGough, I remember listening to his poetry in the long ago 60’s!
I have come late to recording poetry & the writings of others that I can relate to, mainly to remind me that that there have always been good people in this sad world.
Would that their voices could still be heard above the hate & violence.
Thanks for this heartfelt reminder of what a love poet MacNeice can be. There’s less romance in his later long poem, Autumn Sequel (1954), which everyone says is awful, but which I really admire: he’s wonderfully honest about middle age, full of inventive rhyming, and sharply observant of Britain in the Fifties.
MacNeice could be quite hilarious too…the Iceland Diaries spring to mind. But I agree with you about the “littered with kisses” line. For some reason it reminds me of the first snow.
Just thank you for writing this, which I’d saved but not read. I’m just beginning to read into Macneice & his poetry is so good. Someone put me onto the last poems, published in 1963 after his death. The Burning Perch. It’s on Internet Archive. Some of the poems in there are extraordinarily good. Soapsuds, The Taxis. (Lots.) And Summer with Monika had a very particular meaning for me, too, one summer when I was 19. So - thank you, Sarah.
I read it all through again just now - they are such good poems, aren't they. I love them both. And I was 19 when a boy bought me Summer with Monika - was yours called Julian? wink wink
❤️ Wink indeed. It was another one, a Jeremy. Thank goodness there were a lot of us.
Thanks for reminding me of Roger McGough, I remember listening to his poetry in the long ago 60’s!
I have come late to recording poetry & the writings of others that I can relate to, mainly to remind me that that there have always been good people in this sad world.
Would that their voices could still be heard above the hate & violence.
Thanks for this heartfelt reminder of what a love poet MacNeice can be. There’s less romance in his later long poem, Autumn Sequel (1954), which everyone says is awful, but which I really admire: he’s wonderfully honest about middle age, full of inventive rhyming, and sharply observant of Britain in the Fifties.
MacNeice could be quite hilarious too…the Iceland Diaries spring to mind. But I agree with you about the “littered with kisses” line. For some reason it reminds me of the first snow.
My mum had a copy of The Mersey Sound and I read it in my teens. I thought it was fantastic. The three of them were so good.
Great to learn more about Louis MacNeice, too. Thanks, I enjoyed this!
I think Brian Patten might need a whole Substack...