September 2014 Nomination: As Bad As a Mile [9 February 1960. From The Whitsun Weddings] In the aftermath of the 2014 World Cup, sports journalist Barney Ronay in his Monday Guardian column cited the first four lines of this poem as a pretty fair summary
August 2014 Nomination: Born Yesterday [20 January 1954. From The Less Deceived] Tightly-folded bud this poem is, with its riveting three-beat line recalling Robert Graves’ “Counting the Beats.” With a daughter of my own, I was happy to wish this kind of ordinariness
July 2014 Nomination: The Mower [12 June 1979 Hull Literary Club magazine, (Autumn 1979)] In his brilliant 2008 book Larkin, Ideology and Critical Violence, John Osborne notes that ‘Ignorance’ is something of a manifesto for Philip Larkin, laying out a modus operandi that informs his entire
June 2014 Nomination: Bridge for the Living [December 1975. Poetry Book Society Supplement, (Christmas 1981)] In Chapter 7 of his most recent monograph, Radical Larkin: Seven Types of Technical Mastery, John Osborne challenges James Booth’s claim that Larkin: ‘waits for the right time to
May 2014 Nomination: Aubade [29 November 1977 Times Literary Supplement, (23 December 1977)] ‘Aubade’ is a poem that makes me happy. No line in the poem is happy. None of the poem’s thoughts are designed to express happiness. Novice student readers find it
April 2014 Nomination: An Arundel Tomb [20 February 1956. From The Whitsun Weddings] My choice of ‘Poem of the Month’ wavered for a while between Philip Larkin’s ‘Church Going’ and his ‘An Arundel Tomb’. (I’m especially interested in ecclesiastical buildings and all they
March 2014 Nomination: This Be The Verse [? April 1971] They fuck you up your mum and dad … has always struck me as a fantastic opening line for a poem. It’s there in your face from the very start. A startling but,
February 2014 Nomination: MCMXIV [17 May 1960. The Whitsun Weddings] I’d like to nominate and comment on ‘MCMXIV’. When Larkin was deciding the title for this wonderfully soft-focus masterpiece of understatement, he settled on MCMXIV not only to stay true to the carving
December 2013 Nomination: The Large Cool Store [18 June 1961] This one embodies one of the main reasons I love Larkin’s poetry – the ability to find something transcendent in humdrum everyday lives. It’s a simple poem with a simple theme, but
November 2013 Nomination: Next, Please [16 January 1951] The title although appropriate to its subject, almost does a disservice to the poem. This banal Next, Please, having associations with dreary commercial and bureaucratic exchanges is not much of an invitation to read. Once
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 which is about an act of sexual violence. And yet, again
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 inevitably attend intimacy. ‘Talking in Bed’ appears in Philip Larkin’s 1964 volume The
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 determined hopefulness with which we live our lives!
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 about animals and just how cruel humans can be to them.
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 Hamilton grouped ‘Love Again’ with a handful of previously unpublished poems he termed ‘desperately miserable, indeed
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 Eye Hospital, opened in October 2012. It was written
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 discussed each one with him. Of course they’re not very
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 technique and style. I only know I like very much the way
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 two programmes. I purred with pleasure at Stephen Potter’s appreciation and have sent him
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 at school. Naturally, the poem that most struck a chord with any
