Poems That Make Grown Men Cry

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

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Copyright © 2014 by Anthony Holden and Ben Holden

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ISBN: 978-1-47113-489-0

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Preface by Anthony Holden and Ben Holden

 Afterword by Nadine Gordimer

 Acknowledgements

 Amnesty International

 Index of Contributors and Poets

 Index of Titles of Poems

 Index of First Lines

 Credits, Copyrights, and Permissions

ANTHONY HOLDEN

Late one afternoon in the mid-1990s a close friend of long standing called to tell me of a sudden domestic crisis. My wife and I went straight round to join him for the
evening, during which he began to quote a Thomas Hardy poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’. Upon reaching what might be called the punch line – ‘Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew /
And I was unaware’
– our friend choked up, unable to get the words out. This was understandable: he was still upset by the day’s events. We ourselves were much moved.

That weekend we happened to be visiting the scholar and critic Frank Kermode. Frank knew the friend involved, and was also touched by his Hardy moment. ‘Is there any poem
you
can’t recite without choking up?’ I asked him. Never an emotionally
demonstrative man, Frank said immediately: ‘Go and get the Larkin.’

In front of his half-dozen guests he then began to read aloud ‘Unfinished Poem’, about death treading its remorseless way up the stairs, only to turn out to be a pretty young girl
with bare feet, moving the stunned narrator to exclaim: ‘What summer have you broken from?’ It was this startling last line that rendered Frank
speechless; with a forlorn waft of the
hand, he held the book out for someone else to finish the poem.

Also there that day was another professor of English, Tony Tanner, so it was not surprising that this topic of conversation lasted all afternoon, ranging far and wide, not just over other
candidates for this distinct brand of poetic immortality but the power of poetry over prose to move,
the difference between true sentiment and mere mawkishness, and, of course, the pros and cons of
men weeping, whether in private or in public.