For Sidney Bechet

769 Words4 Pages
‘For Sidney Bechet’ resonates with Phillip Larkin’s deep love of Jazz music and is dedicated to the famous Jazz saxophonist and clarinettist, Sidney Bechet. Larkin’s passion for Jazz began in childhood and during the sixties Larkin served as the Jazz critic for The Daily Telegraph. The poem itself is meant to sound like Jazz music with its Jazz like rhythm and the progression of story. The first stanza describes the opening of the song and the effect that the music makes follows. The note played, made significant by the use of “that”, narrows, rises and “shakes like New Orleans reflected on the water”. The simile compares the reverberation of the note that is held and rises from the stage to the rippling waters of New Orleans which is a state with a vast number of lakes and rivers. It connects the music to New Orleans which, as the birthplace of Jazz music, evokes a beautiful image of the relationship between them. “Shakes” itself lengthens the first line and emphasises the note and sound by using structure to elongate both it and the line. “And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes” suggest the audience is becoming lost in the music and has a different effect on each individual. Larkin uses an oxymoron “appropriate falsehood” and romanticises New Orleans thus creating “falsehood”. An image is created in the second stanza of balconies, flower baskets and quadrilles. The Quarter of Balconies refers to the French Quarter of New Orleans, one of its oldest neighbourhoods. There’s a sense of nostalgia throughout the poem despite the period Larkin describes being before his time. Larkin romanticises again with “Everyone making love”. His use of “everybody” suggests that the description is more for what Larkin pictures as to what’s happening while Bechet is playing than what in fact would be, it is unlikely that the whole room would be “making love”. The third

More about For Sidney Bechet

Open Document