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Philip Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985 / West Midlands / England)
Born in 1922 in Coventry, England. He attended St. John's College, Oxford.
His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and, though not particularly strong on its own, is notable insofar as certain passages foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work. In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry, learning from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems. With his second volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955), Larkin became the preeminent poet of his generation, and a leading voice of ... more »
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Popular Poems
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Quotations
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''And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Administration."
Are those whose pants you'd most like to pull down.''
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''And why was all
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Deep Analysis."
Your body sharpened against me, vigilant,
Watchful, when all I meant
Was to make it bright, that it might stand
Burnished before my tent?''
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''calm and dry,
Philip Larkin (1922-1985), British poet. Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (l. 42-45). . . Collected Poems of Philip Larkin. Anthony Thwait...
It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
Unvariably lovely there,
Smaller and clearer as the years go by.''
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''Books; china; a life
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Poetry of Departures."
Reprehensibly perfect.''
Well it wasn't mum and dad who phucked this poets poems up! It was poemshuntered down and deleted.
Philip! if you are up there, curse them for their bad taste.
with a smile from
Tai, from his neck of the midland woods
Poetry is like trying to remember a tune you've forgotten... A poem is written because the poet gets a sudden vision.....he juggles with sounds and associations which will best express the original vision. It is done quite intuitively, sometimes esoterically, sometimes with a very common touch. That is why the poet never thinks of the reader. The vision has something to do with sex. I don't know what it is; it's subtle, elusive, indefineable. It's not surprising, obviously two creative forces in alliance, closely connected.
The result is a poetry of self-indulgence, the patter of the entertainer, fodder for future social historians from a poet who needs emotional isolation, from a poet who touches our hearts by showing his own, who reveals the paradoxes and enigmas of our lives by putting his own on the table, who provides, for me, perspectives on unity that emerge out of aloneness and solitude. -Ron Price with thanks to Andrew Swarbrick, Out of Reach: The Poetry of Philip Larkin, St. Martin 's Press, NY,1995, p.21.
He pursues self-definition,
the nature of identity,
through separateness,
exclusion and difference,
negative self-definition,
a voice of Englishness
back in that ninth and
early tenth stage of history1,
after the loss of imperial power,
diminished influence and, yes,
a new value to English experience.
A remorseful tone, secular
but communal and telling,
not untrue, not unkind and
on the margins, exposed to
the beyond, imprisoned in a
personality, something hidden,
something he has been given,
reticence-English privacy ethic:
where difference merges into
absolute unity; where special
uniqueness and loneliness are
clarified as oneness, endless
continuities and discontinuities.
Ron Price
1 1953-1963-ninth stage of history; 1963-1973-first ten years of the tenth stage of history. Larkin did not write 'many poems after 1973.'(ibid., p.164)
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Hi-the word anaesthetic is misspelled: 'anasthetic' in the Larkin poem 'Aubade' on this site. Please correct! Cheers.
Oblivion, Ill drink to oblivion.
A rutting alchemist just like the rest,
my potent breath warms their swollen breast's,
the differentiation between truth and lies blurred,
and my eloquent post modernist jive now slurred,
...so, dazed... i drift into the night,
head filled with romance, seduced by the city lights.
larkin taught me my moral views,
nescient i, ever obtuse; subscribed to the school of self abuse.
Now the smoky sweet taste of vomit brings dawn.
I write on the walls, the words 'Vacant' and 'Forlorn.'