Philip Larkin Books

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R21EZJ5F5J9I6V Bernard Chapin saying hello. The Whitsun Weddings is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it about 10 times...and you just might too.

Larkin was no devotee of Yeats or Dylan Thomas in the period this collection dates from.

My introduction to Philip Larkin and his collection of verse,' The Whitsun Weddings' I owe to my friend David Evennett, one-time Member of Parliament for Erith and Crayford. Back when I was researcher for a Member of Parliament, I had an avocation as a poet. David discovered this, and recommended Larkin as a poetic voice worthy of attention. (His researcher acted surprised, blurting out loud much to our amusement, 'And here I always took you for a Philistine!') I have been grateful ever since, as I frequently return to this slim volume of verse for inspiration and reflection.

This volume of poetry includes 32 poems. A small book first published in 1964, it has proven so popular (something rare in poetry circles) that it has been reprinted four times during the 1970s, four times during the 1980s, and continues to be reprinted periodically up to the present day.

John Betjeman, one-time poet laureate of England, once commented of Larkin that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand.' This is the key to Larkin's verse -- accessibility. There are no obvious poetical devices that overpower the meaning or the language; there are no forced schemes, however brilliantly executed, that impose themselves on the reader. The gentle rhythms carry the reader like a slow-moving train on a well-cushioned track.

The poem `Mr. Bleaney' is the one David first drew attention to when I brought in the small book a few days after his recommendation.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

These words resonate with me at different times in my life, as they did with David. There is a desire to make someone of oneself, to have something to show for one's life. In the development of Mr. Bleaney's life, and his successor in the rented room, one can take stock and reappraise one's own life. What is the value, and how is it calculated?

Larkin's poetry frequently turns to the matter of religion and spirituality, without getting overly fussy or remote. In the poem Water, Larkin gives a very brief description of a spirit-freeing and pluralistic yet communal experience.

Larkin addresses the issues of age and youth, of love and loneliness, of despair and hope, all within the space of these 32 wonderful poems. The poem `Wild Oats' incorporates all of these themes in one compact, bittersweet tale of life. Who could fail to wonder at the matter-of-fact and poignant description of the man who couldn't commit to one woman, having met only briefly her more beautiful friend, and seven years later is still unable to forget? The poem `A Study of Reading Habits' likewise, dealing with dreams conjured up through reading during youth gone the way of reality in middle age, ending with a too-familiar sour-grapes feeling, `Books are a load of crap'.

Of course, I mustn't neglect the title piece, `The Whitsun Weddings'. Perfectly capturing mood and manner of weddings, the routine and the cycle of life, Larkin in fact uses the image of travelling by rail as a subtle motif for the journey through life, the Whitsun Weddings being a stop through which many (a dozen couples in this poem) proceed on their way to lives that will be lived out in `London spread out like the sun / Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.'

Larkin's final word in this collection is a very worthy word -- one that will preach, in the words of a cleric friend of mine -- and one that brings to very sweet encapsulation his image of the Arundel Tomb, carefully and tenderly drawn for us in words, evoking images of when it was first created to how it is perceived today in its state of weathered testimony of the couple buried together:

Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

May these poems survive.

Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings (Faber, 1964)

Philip Larkin's fifth collection of poetry, The Whitsun Weddings, was the one that firmly established him as one of Britain's major poets. He remains today one of the best-known and most popular British neoformalists. A devotee of Yeats, Hardy, and Dylan Thomas, Larkin never wears his influences too far away from his sleeve, but don't begrudge him that; marvel, instead, that in the turbulent anything-goes sixties lived a poet, misanthrope, and mild-mannered librarian (all in the same body, no less!) who swam against a stream of free verse and wrote, arguably, better formal verse than anyone since Swinburne.

Larkin is a master of enjambment; if you encountered a random Larkin poem isolated from a collection, you might well not realize it's a formal poem until you're well into it, a hallmark of the best formal work. It reads easily and well, and Larkin never allows the meter and rhyme to get in the way of image; in short, Larkin combines the best traits of both lyric and narrative poetry, and packages them up neatly for the reader in small verse of purest pleasure.

Okay, I've just spent two paragraphs describing the best of Larkin's work. Thankfully, this collection is more "best" than "worst." But one of the tragedies of the formal poet, and one no formal poet (save, perhaps, Dante Alighieri) has ever been able to avoid, is that when you're not on top of your game, slipping a notch or two down the ladder of quality leads to the steepest of descents. The sublime can become the ridiculous far faster in formal verse than in free verse, leading to a judgment of "when he screws up, man, does he REALLY screw up." Such is the case with Larkin. The dulcet tones and free-flowing nature of his best work curdle in the mouth when he's off form, leaving trite rhymes, dull rhythms, and some of the most godawful thumping lines one is likely to see outside Helen Steiner Rice.

Still, as I said, there is far less bad than good in The Whitsun Weddings, and it does deserve its place in the annals of British literature. For those who wonder where all the formal verse has gone, Philip Larkin is one of the four or five modern poets to whom anyone can point to say "verse may be out of favor, but believe me, it is still alive and well." ***

Larkin's poetry captures the melancholy, timelessness, and small dramas of everyday experience, and The Whitsun Weddings contains some of his best work (the title poem, Sunny Prestatyn, Dockerey and Son, for example). Alan Bennet's reading captures precisely the feeling of these poems. His careful, restrained inflections and changes of voice heighten Larkin's subtle effects and let each poem's feeling come in a natural and unforced way. A delightful tape from beginnning to end.

Larkin, generally acknowledged as Britain's finest post-war poet, along with Betjeman, wrote only two novels, both in his fertile early period. 'Jill' is his first serious attempt at sustained prose writing, and the result is a fine, stimulating book.

'Jill' began life as a cross between a girls' school novel pastiche and mild pornography called 'Trouble at Willow Gables', an origin that manifests itself throughout the finished work, bubbling salaciously beneath the surface of John Kemp's escapist scribblings. John, of course, is a typically Larkin-esque protagonist - socially awkward, an outsider, and, like his creator, constantly struggling with the remains of a stammer. The portrait is, as only Larkin could draw it, at once affectionately tongue-in-cheek and unremittingly brutal (John's intrusion on the tea-party early on is to die for). What may alarm Larkin's readers (having recovered from the shock delivered by the life and letters) is the deep-rooted distrust of the imaginative faculties emerging in 'Jill'.

We watch with horror as John begins to invent a younger sister for himself with a paranoia approaching downright madness. His creation is born from malice and a sense of exclusion, exacerbated by humiliation upon humiliation heaped upon his shoulders and, having its inception in unhealthy emotion, his fantasy sends him spiralling deeper into a delusion culminating in his drunken violation of the girl on to whom he has transferred his invented sibling.

'Jill' is a novel of both tremendous wit and cruelty. The Larkin of the poems is clearly visible here, brooding on deception and deprivation, gently self-deprecating. 'Jill' is an essential read for admirers of Larkin, providing an important insight into his life and thought, as well as a glimpse of an angry, ambitious young man before the weariness set in.

Phillip Larkin is known as perhaps the greatest British pPoet of the second half of the twentieth century. This book, of a northern, working class boy's first term at Oxford in the grim fall of 1940, offers unparalelled reading pleasure.

Larkin wrote this book in his early twenties, when the war was still very much in progress, and its outcome uncertain. That is only one of the reason I'd recommend it over the many romanticized WW II stories written afterwards, especially in the last decade, when revisionist history takes over, and we sketch characters of the forties as if they had the insights of the nineties.

Here you get the real thing. The war is a presence in the gritty little details of life -- the privations, the routine of putting up the blackout in defense of bombing raids. Towards the end of the book, the hero returns to his northern town to find it devastated.

I found Jill, and Larkin's second and final novel, A Girl in Winter, also set during war-time, bracing, even comforting reading during the first months of the current war. We see that, despite being shadowed by larger events, the inner workings of personality -- love, identity, pride -- carry on, in spite of all.

I wish Larkin had written more novels, or more novelists could write like him.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2GT73S3F3ZWER Bernard Chapin saying hello. The Whitsun Weddings is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it about 10 times...and you just might too.

My introduction to Philip Larkin and his collection of verse, 'The Whitsun Weddings' I owe to my friend David Evennett, at that time Member of Parliament for Erith and Crayford (now MP for another area). Back when I was researcher for a Member of Parliament, I had an avocation as a poet. David discovered this, and recommended Larkin as a poetic voice worthy of attention. (His researcher acted surprised, blurting out loud much to our amusement, 'And here I always took you for a Philistine!') I have been grateful ever since, as I frequently return to this slim volume of verse for inspiration and reflection.

This volume of poetry includes 32 poems of the original 'Whitsun Weddings' collection, plus some others. 'Whitsun Weddings' was a small book first published in 1964, which has proven so popular (something rare in poetry circles) that it has been reprinted four times during the 1970s, four times during the 1980s, and continues to be reprinted periodically up to the present day.

John Betjeman, one-time poet laureate of England, once commented of Larkin that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand.' This is the key to Larkin's verse -- accessibility. There are no obvious poetical devices that overpower the meaning or the language; there are no forced schemes, however brilliantly executed, that impose themselves on the reader. The gentle rhythms carry the reader like a slow-moving train on a well-cushioned track.

The poem 'Mr. Bleaney' is the one David first drew attention to when I brought in the small book a few days after his recommendation.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

These words resonate with me at different times in my life, as they did with David. There is a desire to make someone of oneself, to have something to show for one's life. In the development of Mr. Bleaney's life, and his successor in the rented room, one can take stock and reappraise one's own life. What is the value, and how is it calculated?

Larkin's poetry frequently turns to the matter of religion and spirituality, without getting overly fussy or remote. In the poem Water, Larkin gives a very brief description of a spirit-freeing and pluralistic yet communal experience.

Larkin addresses the issues of age and youth, of love and loneliness, of despair and hope, all within the space of these 32 wonderful poems. The poem `Wild Oats' incorporates all of these themes in one compact, bittersweet tale of life. Who could fail to wonder at the matter-of-fact and poignant description of the man who couldn't commit to one woman, having met only briefly her more beautiful friend, and seven years later is still unable to forget? The poem 'A Study of Reading Habits' likewise, dealing with dreams conjured up through reading during youth gone the way of reality in middle age, ending with a too-familiar sour-grapes feeling, 'Books are a load of crap'.

Of course, I mustn't neglect the title piece, 'The Whitsun Weddings'. Perfectly capturing mood and manner of weddings, the routine and the cycle of life, Larkin in fact uses the image of travelling by rail as a subtle motif for the journey through life, the Whitsun Weddings being a stop through which many (a dozen couples in this poem) proceed on their way to lives that will be lived out in 'London spread out like the sun / Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.'

Larkin's final word in this collection is a very worthy word -- one that will preach, in the words of a cleric friend of mine -- and one that brings to very sweet encapsulation his image of the Arundel Tomb, carefully and tenderly drawn for us in words, evoking images of when it was first created to how it is perceived today in its state of weathered testimony of the couple buried together:

Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

May these poems survive.

In the middle of World War II, 22-year old Katherine Lind, a refugee from Europe is frozen in time and tragedy. Her past is gone -- family, friends, college life -- and she is living moment by moment, in a humiliating temporary library job, among the unfriendly aliens, somewhere in England.

Six years before it was summer, and the world was at peace. On a lark, she's decided to take up her British pen pal's invitation to a three week stay in the Oxfordshire countryside. Robin Fennel puzzles and fasicinates her. The middle part of the book takes us back six years, to that idyllic time. Katherine and Robin's relationship does not fit into any standard romantic paradigm. It is all too subtle for that, and I'd love to see this exquisitely written novel turned into one of those wonderfully atmospheric films the British excell at.

Once again, it is good to read a World War II story, free of latter day cliches, and the teary-eyed romanticism typical of its own period. This book is rather more rewarding than Larkin's first effort, Jill, in that the lead character -- he does a wonderful job with a woman, by the way -- is more complex, mature and knowing than the hapless John Kemp of Jill.

There is also a hint towards a happy ending, though the ultimate outcome would depend on both characters surviving the war. A beautiful book and a pleasure.

My introduction to Philip Larkin and his collection of verse,' The Whitsun Weddings' I owe to my friend David Evennett, one-time Member of Parliament for Erith and Crayford. Back when I was researcher for a Member of Parliament, I had an avocation as a poet. David discovered this, and recommended Larkin as a poetic voice worthy of attention. (His researcher acted surprised, blurting out loud much to our amusement, 'And here I always took you for a Philistine!') I have been grateful ever since, as I frequently return to this slim volume of verse for inspiration and reflection.

'Whitsun Weddings' includes 32 poems. A small book first published in 1964, it has proven so popular (something rare in poetry circles) that it has been reprinted four times during the 1970s, four times during the 1980s, and continues to be reprinted periodically up to the present day.

John Betjeman, one-time poet laureate of England, once commented of Larkin that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand.' This is the key to Larkin's verse -- accessibility. There are no obvious poetical devices that overpower the meaning or the language; there are no forced schemes, however brilliantly executed, that impose themselves on the reader. The gentle rhythms carry the reader like a slow-moving train on a well-cushioned track.

The poem 'Mr. Bleaney' is the one David first drew attention to when I brought in the small book a few days after his recommendation.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

These words resonate with me at different times in my life, as they did with David. There is a desire to make someone of oneself, to have something to show for one's life. In the development of Mr. Bleaney's life, and his successor in the rented room, one can take stock and reappraise one's own life. What is the value, and how is it calculated?

Larkin's poetry frequently turns to the matter of religion and spirituality, without getting overly fussy or remote. In the poem Water, Larkin gives a very brief description of a spirit-freeing and pluralistic yet communal experience.

Larkin addresses the issues of age and youth, of love and loneliness, of despair and hope, all within the space of these 32 wonderful poems. The poem 'Wild Oats' incorporates all of these themes in one compact, bittersweet tale of life. Who could fail to wonder at the matter-of-fact and poignant description of the man who couldn't commit to one woman, having met only briefly her more beautiful friend, and seven years later is still unable to forget? The poem `A Study of Reading Habits' likewise, dealing with dreams conjured up through reading during youth gone the way of reality in middle age, ending with a too-familiar sour-grapes feeling, `Books are a load of crap'.

Of course, I mustn't neglect the title piece, 'The Whitsun Weddings'. Perfectly capturing mood and manner of weddings, the routine and the cycle of life, Larkin in fact uses the image of travelling by rail as a subtle motif for the journey through life, the Whitsun Weddings being a stop through which many (a dozen couples in this poem) proceed on their way to lives that will be lived out in `London spread out like the sun / Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.'

Larkin's final word in this collection is a very worthy word -- one that will preach, in the words of a cleric friend of mine -- and one that brings to very sweet encapsulation his image of the Arundel Tomb, carefully and tenderly drawn for us in words, evoking images of when it was first created to how it is perceived today in its state of weathered testimony of the couple buried together:

Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

This particular volume pairs the 'Whitsun Weddings' with his earlier work, 'The Less Deceived', first published in 1955. This work was the one that established Larkin as an 'up-and-coming voice' in English poetry. He was part of 'The Movement' (which also included writers such as Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn), which avoided sentimentality that was more typical of Romantic poetry. Emotion and wordcraft are still strongly present, but imagery is more grounded and real, less flowery and impressionistic.

There are connections here, and not just stylistically. Larkin's poem 'Toads' (reflections on working life) in the earlier work is connected to 'Toads Revisited' in the later 'Whitsun Weddings'. Touches such as these keep the ideas going across time.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RWD222NRY2HI Bernard Chapin saying hello. The Whitsun Weddings is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it about 10 times...and you just might too.

I have only recently discovered the poetry of Larkin, and his work is insightful, droll, sometimes depressing, but always engaging. He was not afraid of rhyming and using strict meters, and his poems are often beautiful because of, not despite, these elements of traditional poetic craft. A worthy addition to any bookshelf of top-flight poetry.

I am one of a growing number that find Larkin lame and flaccid. You read, you understand, you move on. There is little to struggle over, nothing one wishes to reread. Simple poems of a lost England.

This poetry has no redemption or beauty. It is dry, sarcastic, dismal, and plain out unhealthy to the mind. It's not worth it. Read poetry that moves you to understanding, not this.

Perhaps Larkin has been somewhat overlooked because he wrote in rhymed verse and the past century has been increasingly focused on free verse. I generally favor free verse, myself, but Larkin's skill at rhyme is such that it is always unobtrusive, never strained or forced, and sometimes.

But, his modernity is indisputable, combining, and perhaps exceeding, the humanity of Auden as well as the perspicacity of Eliot.

His is clearly a concise body of work, but it is large in its range and insight. Larkin's poems often express an thought or feeling that the reader will recognize as a part of his own experience, finally put into words with the utmost clarity. He played his "tennis" with the net, but remained distinctly modern.

There are two different types of Larkin poem. The first type, mostly written before 1955, are influenced by Yeats and Auden and are mediocre. The second, written when he found his voice, are amongst the most wonderful works of English literature ever written.
So what was his voice? Basically that of twentieth century man - atheistic, obsessed with sex, regretting the loss of faith and the old certainties. He takes these subjects and turns them into glorious poems. But here's the really incredible thing: he uses ordinary, uncomplicated language. No tricks, no arcane allusions, just plain English.
It can't be denied that the voice is bleak, and it is too uncompromising for some. However, those who like looking into the heart of darkness will find poems which they will remember for the rest of their lives.

This magnificent biography reads like a novel. The prose is smooth and clear; this is decidedly not an academic biography. It belongs firmly to the art of literary biography for which the British are renowned. Larkin comes over as a classic eccentric on the order of his friends and contemporaries such as Kingsley Amis. The biography shows again how strong the reaction to social fascism can be; Larkin, like Waugh, Graham Greene and Muggeridge, had a visceral, instinctive mistrust of the Welfare State and its ideology of social "progress." His struggles with women are instructive, but only go to show once again that when asked to choose, some people prefer art to nappies and love. Motion, Martin Amis has pointed out, has a tendency to judge Larkin according to PC standards, thus finding him on the wrong side of history's recent celebration of all things human. Amis, not Motion, makes the case that Larkin should be judged by the standards of this time; if he was a racist, his was an ordinary bigotry, not the over-wrought, systematic racism of the Nazis. No doubt he was impossible to know or be around, but Motion's affectionate, if critical, treatment would be well-advised to consider Amis' warning to keep our faith in the triumph of the individual against the modern mob's claim to all-knowingness.

Andrew Motion's biography of Larkin, although well researched, is ultimately disappointing. Motion seems to have little sympathy for Larkin, and one wonders why he undertook this task. He does thoroughly cover the facts of Larkin's life -- his father, who admired Hitler even during the Second World War and his mother who seemed to have evoked only pity from her son. Indeed, according to Motion, Larkin claimed that his parents had such an unhappy marriage that he decided never to marry. It turns out, contrary to what one would believe from the poetry, that Larkin (at least in his later life) was fairly successful with women. However, he was careful not to commit himself too far. Although most people who knew Larkin liked him (such as Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest), this book will not tell you why. A more sympathetic sketch of Larkin can be found in Martin Amis's recent memoir. The book also falls short in its discussion of the poetry. That may be because Larkin's mature style was deceptively simple. While this make the poetry accessible to a wide audience, it robs the biographer of the opportunity to explicate obscure images or references. Anyone interested in Larkin is better off with the Collected Poems, and Required Writing, a book of essays.

Andrew Motion is a poet and novelist whose earliest poems were lyrical and highly influenced by the work of Philip Larkin. He writes of Larkin in this biography with respect and candor, and not as a hero-worshiper (or disparager). Larkin's life, because of his reclusive nature, was not an open book, and he had a dark side, which contrasts greatly with the kind of lyrical, often witty (though at times bitter) poetry he produced.

Larkin wrote poetry from an early age, though his first desire was to be a novelist. In fact he wrote two novels, neither of which made much of a hit, and he could write no others. He worked every day as a librarian at Brynmor Jones Library in Hull. He loved traditional jazz and wrote frequently about it. He never married, but had two mistresses; one he mistreated badly. He could be funny and also mean-spirited. There were many parts to the man, some at odds with others. Motion does a good job fleshing these sides out and dealing with them without passing judgment. It's a fair and balanced, well-written biography. Recommended.

Ignore the previous writer. This is one of the handful of truly fine literary biographies from the last fifty years, maybe more. Unless Larkin himself was fully devoted to falsifying the record, he was every bit the unrelenting prig Motion has made him out to be; and not only does Motion show how Larkin as an artist transcended this, Motion personally knew and liked Larkin. Nowhere does Motion naively simplify the cause and effect between Larkin's childhood and his adult unhappiness --again, the facts are laid out judiciously, and the reader is free to draw conclusions. Finally, the idea that Motion, a Poet laureate, acquaintance of Larkin, and a gifted literary essayist, is somehow lacking in his analysis of the poems is nonsense. Motion takes us through the major work without allowing it to dominate the narrative which is, after all, about Larkin's life. All in all, this is a remarkable piece of literary journalism; absolutely first rank. That anyone interested in Larkin would be scared off by the prior casual dismissal, inattentive as it is, is a travesty.

Philip Larkin, High Windows (Faber, 1974)

Larkin, the celebrated librarian-poet, got somewhat cranky in his middle age. He also got more experimental, both qualities that make for fine poetry. Add to these scurrilousness, a wicked sense of humor, and an ear for rhythm matched only in the modern world's finest poets, and you have a recipe for greatness.

So why doesn't Larkin always pull it off? Good question. When he's on, he's very, very on, but when he's off, it's a mess. Unlike most poets, Larkin seems to have been able to switch back and forth between formal and free verse at will a number of times, but he did make the grade-school gaffe of trying to combine the two more than once. And a good deal of his "politically incorrect" (for lack of a better term) poetry smacks more of the juvenile than the Shakespearean:

"Jan von Hogspeuw staggers to the door
And pisses at the dark. Outside, the rain
Courses in cart-ruts down the deep mud land.
Inside, Dirk Dogstoerd pours himself some more..."
("The Card-Players")

Despite these excursions into the ridiculous, however, Larkin does still exhibit his mastery more often than not in this slim volume, and it's worth picking up either for the established Larkin fan or the newcomer who wonders what happened to metrical poetry after World War II. ***

Phillip Larkin rocks. When I was a sophmore in college I burned down my dorm room and my copy of High Windows. It was truly tragic. This slim little volume contains some of Larkin's best work. It is wry, revealing, and sardonic in true Larkin fashion. I particularly like the title poem and None of the Books Have Time. Also, there's one in there about the stubborn stupidity of old folks that is absolutely delightful and hilarious though the title escapes me at the moment. Anyway, this small book that won't take up either much time to read or much space on the shelf is a delightful and highly recommended piece. One of my all-time favorites.

This is a bad anthology to introduce someone to 20.c. poetry; the selections of many important poets are both too idiosyncratic and too meagre. Besides, the first half of the book includes lots of vaguely interesting doggerel of questionable poetic value.

On the other hand, there are several things to be said for it. The first is that Larkin put in a lot of good stuff that is not usually anthologised. Among the inspired selections are Auden's "No Change of Place", "Brussels in Winter" and "Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno"; Kipling's "McAndrew's Hymn"; Edward Thomas's "Team's Head-Brass"; Empson's "Success" and the whole Betjeman section. But most of his selections from particular authors are sensible and predictable. He is very conservative with Eliot and Yeats. Yeats also gets too little space -- 20 pp. as opposed to 24 for Auden and 30 for Eliot. It's nice to see that Larkin has picked some of his own stuff; it's more or less what you'd expect him to have picked, though. Some of his choices are weird -- Peter Porter's "Annotations on Auschwitz" is represented by its clever but not quite self-contained last quatrain -- and of course most of the (many) poems chosen from the early 1900s are not very good.

This anthology also functions as a record of Larkin's taste and sense of the poetic tradition of his time, and yields a few parallels with his own poetic practice. There's also an interesting find: J.B.S. Haldane's poem titled "Cancer's a funny thing", for instance, which is the source of the line in Auden's "Miss Gee".

Another thing to note about this anthology is that the 1960s were less disconnected from the pre-war era than our generation is, and probably more capable of understanding its verse and appreciating it. Most of the writers of that period -- Davies, Gibson, Masefield, Young -- are now hardly read except in anthologies like this, and it's good and perhaps important that they should be read.

Readers of Larkin's excellent letters will have come across frequent complaints about his 'Oxford Book of Two Cent Verse' as he dismissivly calls it. Although he found the task of producing it onerous, it's very good -- if one accepts it for what it is.

Anthologies, having limited space, make a choice between representing the best writers at length, or representing a larger number of writers more briefly. Larkin chooses the latter: the book includes 584 poems by about 200 poets, which this means that many poets (outside the "greats" -- Hardy, Yeats and Eliot -- who are all fully represented) are represented by as little as two poems.

But this approach has virtues. Larkin includes poems by many poets who aren't considered "major writers"; and who, while often well-known in their lives, are not likely to be known to readers now. This is interesting, of course, as it reminds a reader that poets are not only influenced by the best writers, but also by the second best. There is also, perhaps, an attempt here to sketch a certain tradition of English twentieth century writing: one that, although it includes Eliot and Basil Bunting, is in the main, colloquial, unheroic and keen to document domestic events and emotions in poetry that is, if not strictly formal, at least nodding at formal arrangement.

Lovers of Larkin, or of the sort of poetry outlined above, may well find themselves overjoyed by this anthology. Readers whose tastes are for the outlandish, excessive and outragous may be impatient. Personally I think that poetry is at its healthiest when these two groups are not entirely separated: when they both can agree on certain writers to admire; and when both of them at least are aware of and respect the other's tastes.

Perhaps people who find themselves entirely in accord with this anthology should also look at Rosenthal's 'Poetry in English' -- a dull name but a fantastic anthology -- for an alternative view of Twentieth Century poetry. (And perhaps, for fuller coverage of the post-1960s poets, Lucie-Smith's 'British Poetry Since 1945'; and for a look at where this alternative English tradition can lead to, Crozier and Longville's 'A Various Art' or Sinclair's 'Conductors of Chaos'.) And for the opposite group: this anthology, with the reminder that Pound, the key figure in the Modernist movement, thought very highly of the key poetic figure in Larkin's English tradition, Thomas Hardy.