Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSLwas an English poet, novelist and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jilland A Girl in Winter, and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddingsand High Windows. He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered in All What Jazz: A...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 August 1922
always-trying people feels
I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt.
pain moon blow
The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke... Is a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can't come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere.
autumn training parting
Parting is a training streamer,Lingering like leaves in autumn...
running eye solitude
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes from death- Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.
life-is breaths
...the breath that sharpens life is life itself...
happens
Something, like nothing, happens anywhere.
retirement young retiring
You can't put off being young until you retire.
poetry wordsworth deprivation
Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.
mad long singing
I listen to money singing, it's like looking down from long French windows at a provincial town. The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad in the evening sun. It is intensely sad...
water silence black
Only one ship is seeking us, a black-Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her backA huge and birdless silence. In her wakeNo waters breed or break.
superstitions belief dies
But superstition, like belief, must die...
summer mother hate
My mother, who hates thunderstorms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there....
photography art faithful
But, o, photography! as no art is,Faithful and disappointing! That recordsDull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,And will not censor blemishes,Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards
work poison use
Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison-- Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion.