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
September 2012 Nomination: Aubade [29 November 1977. First published in The Times Literary Supplement 23 December 1977 I was terrified of death from a very young age. My parents used to put me to bed and I would often lie awake wide-eyed with fear
May 2006 Nomination: Aubade [29 November 1977. The Times Literary Supplement 23 December 1977] ‘Aubade’ was published in the Times Literary Supplement in December, 1977. Regarded as his last great poem, it is constantly referenced and deeply revered: for many, an unnervingly unambiguous work of art.
January 2004 Nomination: Aubade [29 November 1977. The Times Literary Supplement 23 December 1977] A sulky fifty-six (Auden) means intimations of mortality are rather more frequent visitors to my mind than I’d like. The oblivion of death is what we all fear I think,
December 2002 Nomination: Aubade [29 November 1977. The Times Literary Supplement 23 December 1977] It’s sometimes said that Larkin ‘dried up’ after High Windows and wrote nothing worth preserving thereafter. But there were three or four outstanding poems between its publication in 1975 and his death
