AN ENORMOUS YES

A reader writes:

“I think there’s an even better Philip Larkin line, although it refers to a specific artist. In “For Sidney Bechet” he writes “On me your voice falls as they say love should/ Like an enormous yes.”
By the way, this poem, which begins “That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes/ Like New Orleans reflected on the water . . .” and which ends “And greeted as the natural noise of good/Scattering long-haired grief and scored pity” has a particular poignancy at this moment.”

Indeed. if you are unfamiliar with Larkin, you are missing, to my mind, the greatest English-speaking poet of the last half-century. Try the Collected Poems. None disappoints. Some never leave your consciousness.