February 2003

Nomination: No Road [28 October 1950. From XX Poems and The Less Deceived]

I became interested in Philip Larkin’s poetry only three years ago by way of a novel I was reading at the time called Holy Smoke by Jane and Anna Campion. On one of the introductory pages they printed Larkin’s poem ‘Ignorance’.

Wanted to read more of his work so went to the library and picked up a collection of his poems and read every one. Usually I like a few poems in an anthology but I found myself typing in my computer (before scanning!) more than twenty of my favorites. ‘No Road’ is the poem that touched me the most for personal reasons and the one that shows off his talent for describing inner thoughts so succinctly.

Maura Verderame