James Booth

Oils

August 2008 Nomination: Oils [14 March 1950. From XX Poems] ‘Oils’ appeared in XX Poems in 1951. It is the first in a diptych of poems, ‘Two Portraits of Sex’, which while not ekphrastic (descriptive of particular pictures), as are ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ or ‘The Card-Players’,

Guitar Piece II

November 2002 Nomination: Guitar Piece II [18 September 1946. From Collected Poems (1988)] The second of Larkin’s ‘Two Guitar Pieces’ was completed on 18 September 1946, the month in which the young poet, just turned 24, moved from Wellington to become Assistant Librarian at