Word: betjeman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Updike has neither Nash's bewildered air of good sense wrapped in metrical nonsense nor Bishop's malicious delight in destroying his targets in a single, whiplashing line. His tone is more urbane and more lyrical, a bit reminiscent of Britain's John Betjeman. A name, a scrap of a news item, a thought from a book is enough to set his graceful mages turning and his lines moving to impeccable rhythms. A sentence by New York Times Book Reviewer Orville Prescott praising two novels for being 'neither overly ambitious nor overly ong" prompts...
...Mansion House, seat of London's square-mile ancient center, as 360 dignitaries gathered for the opening of the first City of London festival. Diamond tiaras twinkled in the well-Established audience on hand to see an "entertainment" on the City's history by Poet John Betjeman, assisted by Sir John Gielgud and 74-year-old Comedian Randolph Sutton. Toward the end, Sutton broke out in an old, faintly scabrous music-hall ditty, and invited the audience to sing along. High sheriffs shuffled, bankers balked, field marshals fidgeted. Then a strong, clear voice rose from the austere assemblage...
Long bemused by tennis-playing amazons ("Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl"), Britain's bestselling Poet John Betjeman, 55, lit out for Australia in November all clutched up: "I could not write and was afraid to try; I felt I was finished." But last week, back in London again, Latter-Day Victorian Betjeman felt himself once more summoned by belles. "Australia," he glowed, "is a wonderful country with a wonderful future, magnificent oysters and wines, and athletic girls of the type I like best-with long hair and legs, and turned-up noses...
...posthumously acquired a band of devoted disciples. Among his current admirers are Edmund Wilson ("His books are extremely intellectual and composed with the closest attention: dense textures of in direction that always disguise point"), Sir Osbert Sitwell, who compares his style to "silver cobwebs," and Poet John Betjeman, to whom Firbank is "a jewelled and clockwork nightingale...
...When I was younger, less secure and less repulsive," confided Britain's best-selling Poet John Betjeman, 55, to Associated Press Confessor Eddy Gilmore, "I used to wear modern things. But now I look at the best-dressed men and wear exactly the opposite." So crowing, the latter-day Victorian and crusading architectural antiquarian modeled the glory of his ragbag wardrobe: a morning suit originally made for U.S. Novelist Henry James -who died in, London 45 years ago. "It's wonderful to wear his clothes." beamed Fellow Author Betjeman. "I didn't need a single alteration...