Clive James's 'Japanese Maple'

At The New Republic Jason Guriel considers Clive James's career in poetry and television--and James's most recent writings, which address his mortality. From The New Republic:

For a certain demographic last September, the breaking news was all about five stanzas. News outlets, from the Guardian to Slate, were reporting the existence of a poem on the subject of death, called “Japanese Maple.” You might’ve thought you were living in a Martin Amis story, the one where poets have agents and screenwriters have to endure rejection slips from little magazines. It’s hardly wire-worthy, after all, a poet occupied with his mortality. The market for morbid poems is so flooded it could float an ark.

But “Japanese Maple,” which appeared in The New Yorker, wasn’t your typical poem, nor its author your typical poet. Clive James was—is—one of the preeminent culture critics of the last 40 years—and a celebrity, to boot. Born in 1939, he left Sydney for London in the early ’60s. He made a name writing for publications like the Times Literary Supplement, back when the byline was often redacted. (An unsigned essay on Edmund Wilson made James infamous the old-fashioned, germy way: It went viral by word of mouth.) James became a TV critic in the ’70s, and eventually wound up on TV screens interviewing celebrities and hosting documentaries. (Princess Diana was a lunch companion.) He has filed on auto-racing, Larkin, musicals, and The Da Vinci Code. Nevermind Žižek; James’s beat ranges from Benjamin to Bogdanovich. [...]

Continue at The New Republic.