dublinka

This week, I found an barely readable 1930 copy of Eric Linklater's Poet's pub, in a dowdy bookstore in town. It opens with the poet Saturday Keith, dismissing a damning review of his latest work. "No serious poet can today afford to work without a theory". (It sounds like an advertisement, he thought. Equip your library with our special rot-and-blot proof theories. Warmly recommended by the leading poets. Easy payments arranged. You can earn while you learn.)It's not quite the flashing wit illuminating every page that the blurb promises but there are flashes of insight, particularly about bars, to be found for those who make the effort, such as when, he states "I'm a bad publican and a bad poet too, for a good publican ought to be a little above life, a little bit enthroned, and a good poet ought, I think, to be just a step or two below life; polite I mean..." For those or you too lazy, they even made a movie out of it