The Explosion
May 2010 Nomination: The Explosion [5 January 1970. From High Windows] Speeding up to my sixth decade, months away now, alas not years, I find Larkin’s observations on
Poem Reviews
Essential Beauty
Nomination: Essential Beauty [26 June 1962. From The Whitsun Weddings] Although “Granny Graveclothes’ Tea” must surely be an invention, no doubt there are scholars of Fifties and Sixties
Livings
March 2010 Nomination: Livings [16 October/23 November/10 December 1971. From High Windows] Larkin always said that he hadn’t wanted to be a poet. What he hoped for was
Absences
February 2010 Nomination: Absences [28 November 1950. From The Less Deceived] Larkin thought of the last line as sounding ‘like a slightly unconvincing translation from a French symbolist’
For Sidney Bechet
January 2010 Nomination: For Sidney Bechet [15 January 1954. From The Whitsun Weddings] Larkin’s poems with jazz connections reflect the enormous importance that jazz played in his life
Here
December 2009 Nomination: Here [8 October 1961. From The Whitsun Weddings] Being an exile from Hull of more than forty years this poem has had many resonances for
Money
December 2008 Nomination: Money [19 February 1973. From High Windows] ‘Money’ has never been chosen so far. Perhaps it takes an age of inflation to fully appreciate a
Dockery and Son
November 2008 Nomination: Dockery and Son [28 March 1963. From The Whitsun Weddings] Larkin minced no words in his discussions of children. He condemns them as ‘awful’ and
Administration
October 2008 Nomination: ‘Administration’ [3 March 1965] I worked at the University Library from 1963-1966 as a Library Assistant and made many friends there, with most of
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’,
Water
June 2008 Nomination: Water [6 April 1954. From The Whitsun Weddings] Philip Larkin wrote the unlike poems ‘Skin’ and ‘Water’ on two consecutive days in 1954: the first
Here
May 2008 Nomination: Here [8 October 1961. From The Whitsun Weddings] I was recently doing some work on Larkin when my flatmate came into the room. As she
