October 2013 Nomination: Deceptions [20 February 1950. From The Less Deceived] It is with a degree of uneasiness that one nominates ‘Deceptions’ as a ‘favourite poem’. This is, after all, a work [...]

August 2013 Nomination: Talking in Bed [10 August 1960. From The Whutsun Weddings] I admire this poem because it frames so precisely, and with poignance, the problems of “honesty” that almost [...]

July 2013 Nomination: Home is so Sad [13 December 1958. From The Whitsun Weddings] I love this poem because it captures something poignant – and true – about our homes but also points out the [...]

June 2013 Nomination: Take One Home for the Kiddies [13 August 1960. From The Whitsun Weddings] I have chosen this seemingly simple Larkin poem because it beautifully exemplifies the way I feel [...]

April 2013 Nomination: Love Again [20 September 1979. From The Complete Poems (2012)] Reviewing Anthony Thwaite’s 1988 edition of Larkin’s Collected Poems, the late, great poet and critic Ian [...]

March 2013 Nomination: Long Sight in Age [20 June 1955. From The Complete Poems (2012)] The poem, ‘Long Sight in Age’, features as part of the extensive Larkin display in the Hull and East Riding [...]

February 2013 Nomination: Love, we must part now [1943-44. From The North Ship] If I look for unlikely favourites I suppose I’d go for The North Ship simply because they are so memorable as I [...]

January 2013 Nomination: The Explosion [5 January 1970. From High Windows (1970)] Larkin is one of the masters of the English Language and I’m an unqualified reader incapable of judging him on [...]

December 2012 Nomination: Pigeons [First published in Departure January 1957] In September 1956 Philip wrote a letter to his mother which contained the following paragraph: I’m glad you heard the [...]

November 2012 Nomination: The Mower [12 June 1979. From Collected Poems (1988)] I suspect that like most Larkin aficionados of my generation, I first came across Philip Larkin’s poetry when I was [...]