Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSLwas an English poet, novelist and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jilland A Girl in Winter, and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddingsand High Windows. He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered in All What Jazz: A...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 August 1922
summer mother hate
My mother, who hates thunderstorms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there....
air blue glasses
And immediately Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
kind difficult stills
It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.
strange grew constant
In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change.
crazy odd finnegans-wake
You have to distinguish between things that seemed odd when they were new but are now quite familiar, such as Ibsen and Wagner, and things that seemed crazy when they were new and seem crazy now, like 'Finnegans Wake' and Picasso.
art lying thinking
I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.
novelists poet ifs
If you tell a novelist, 'Life's not like that', he has to do something about it. The poet simply replies, 'No, but I am.'
freedom ties self
No one can tear your thread out of himself. No one can tie you down or set you free.
freedom long slides
... everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly.
money
Clearly money has something to do with life....
daughter spring flower
Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous, Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water, Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter; And those she has least use for see her best, Their paths grown craven and circuitous, Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.
greatness hands feet
Many famous feet have trod Sublunary paths, and famous hands have weighed The strength they have against the strength they need; And famous lips interrogated God Concerning franchise in eternity....
work bricks add
To put one brick upon another, Add a third, and then a fourth, Leaves no time to wonder whether What you do has any worth.
love morning order
Selflessness is like waiting in a hospital In a badly-fitting suit on a cold wet morning. Selfishness is like listening to good jazz With drinks for further orders and a huge fire.