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
tree said leafs
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said;
strange grew constant
In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change.
kind difficult stills
It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.
death rounds
Death: the anaesthetic from which none come round.
spiritual thinking odds
I am beginning to think of the human imagination as a fruit machine on which victories are rare and separated by much vain expense, and represent a rare alignment of mental and spiritual qualities that normally are quite at odds.
sex mean moments
Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.
mind china seeing
I wouldn't mind seeing China if I could come back the same day.
squat toad work
Why should I let the toad work / Squat on my life?