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sydsnot71 's review for:
The Whitsun Weddings
by Philip Larkin
I really enjoyed reading this.
There's an elegiac quality to many of the poems, even if they aren't elegies. There's a lot of contemplation of mortality from a man in middle age, unmarried and without children. But there's also the great 'For Sidney Bechet', which is one of the great poems about how music gets to us:
On me your voice falls as they say love should
Like an enormous yes...
There's also one of Larkin's most well-known poems, MCMXIV about the men of Britain on the outbreak of World War One:
Never such innocence,
Never before or since
Also. some lines from 'Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses' really hit home, perhaps because it is November and partly because of the current political situation:
Yet not till I was airborne
Did I recall the date -
That day when Queen and Minister
And Band of Guards and all
Still act their solemn-sinister
Wreath-rubbish in Whitehall.
It used to make me throw up,
These mawkish nursery games:
O, When will England grow up?
A modern poet writing that would probably get dragged through the tabloids and parliament for their lack of patriotism.
It's a wonderful collection of poems though, that is worth a read.
There's an elegiac quality to many of the poems, even if they aren't elegies. There's a lot of contemplation of mortality from a man in middle age, unmarried and without children. But there's also the great 'For Sidney Bechet', which is one of the great poems about how music gets to us:
On me your voice falls as they say love should
Like an enormous yes...
There's also one of Larkin's most well-known poems, MCMXIV about the men of Britain on the outbreak of World War One:
Never such innocence,
Never before or since
Also. some lines from 'Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses' really hit home, perhaps because it is November and partly because of the current political situation:
Yet not till I was airborne
Did I recall the date -
That day when Queen and Minister
And Band of Guards and all
Still act their solemn-sinister
Wreath-rubbish in Whitehall.
It used to make me throw up,
These mawkish nursery games:
O, When will England grow up?
A modern poet writing that would probably get dragged through the tabloids and parliament for their lack of patriotism.
It's a wonderful collection of poems though, that is worth a read.