This Be The Verse
‘A poem for such a day as this’
a poem for such a day as this
— is a column where I share my favourite poems and their creators, some of whom might be familiar and some not.
Whatever the case, I hope they elicit a smile, a grin, a tear, a smirk … or, in Kafka’s words — be an axe for the frozen sea within us.
As always — it would be great to hear your thoughts.
A poem for such a day as today is:
This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin was one of post-war England’s most famous poets, commonly referred to as “England’s other Poet Laureate” until his death in 1985. Indeed, when the position of laureate became vacant in 1984, many poets and critics favoured Larkin’s appointment, but Larkin preferred to avoid the limelight.
I’d like to think…that people in pubs would talk about my poems. — Larkin to his publisher
Philip Larkin is a poet whose very name conjures up a specific persona: the gloomy, death-obsessed and darkly humorous observer of human foibles and failings.
The truth, both about the man and his work, is more complex, but the existence of the popular image points to Larkin’s broader cultural influence, beyond the world of poetry.
His personal reputation has sometimes suffered, particularly following the publication of his letters which revealed veins of right-wing opinion, but he remains much loved for his “piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent” (as defined by Jean Hartley of the Marvell Press).
Born in Coventry, in 1922, Larkin was the son of a Nazi-sympathising father who worked as the City Treasurer, and a mother to whom he felt a strong, though sometimes claustrophobic attachment.
The “forgotten boredom” of his childhood was followed by a much more colourful period at Oxford University where he formed several important friendships with, amongst others, Kingsley Amis.
Larkin’s first job after university, running a local library in Shropshire, became his wage-earning career for the rest of his life, taking him to university libraries in Leicester, Belfast and finally Hull, where he stayed for thirty years.
This lack of professional eventfulness was matched, at least on the surface, by his private life: despite several long-standing relationships with women, Larkin never married.
Initially, Larkin concentrated on writing fiction, producing two novels in the 1940s.
His first poetry collection, The North Ship (1945) was heavily influenced by Yeats and did not yet present the voice for which he later became famous.
The mature Philip Larkin style — that of the detached, sometimes lugubrious, sometimes tender observer of “ordinary people doing ordinary things” (Jean Hartley) — first appears in his second collection, The Less Deceived, published ten years later.
The virtues of this poetic persona, its plainness and scepticism, came to be associated with The Movement, the post-war generation of poets brought together in the New Lines anthology of 1956.
Two more collections followed at similarly lengthy intervals: The Whitsun Weddings (1965), considered by many to be his finest achievement, and High Windows (1974).
In his last decade, Larkin’s poetic inspiration largely failed, and he produced only a handful of poems before his death from cancer in 1985.
This loss of inspiration was one of the reasons he turned down the post of Poet Laureate, offered to him the year before his death, though the fact he was first choice for it underlines the high regard in which he was held, despite his slight output.
Thank you for reading.
