Tag Archives: Philip Larkin

What Are Days For? Larkin’s Non Answer

In “Days,”Larkin urges us to make the most of each day.

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Ted Lasso, Not Larkin, for Child Advice

Larkin’s famous poem “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” is wrong in a number of interesting ways.

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Empire of Light, Filled with Poetry

The film “Empire of Light” is magical in part because of all the poetry recited.

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Larkin’s Attack on Nostalgia

Larkin’s “I Remember” is an attack on Coventry for not having given him an idealized childhood.

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My Problematic Relationship with Charles II

A melange of thoughts, including my supposed link with Charles II and authors connected with Coventry.

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Notre Dame’s Meaning for Non-Believers

Wednesday Non-believers as well as believers may feel the urge to send up a prayer of thanks that Notre Dame’s basic structure appears to have survived the fire. The world-wide concern over the catastrophe indicates that the cathedral was not only meaningful to Christians. A friend alerted me to a Fleda Brown poem that helps […]

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“Sexual Intercourse Began in 1963”

Philip Larkin describes how the Beatles changed Britain’s social mores fifty years ago.

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Beating Obama into a Steel Spike

For strength Obama can think of himself as Carl Sandburg’s steel spike.

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Hitchens: A Life Lived in Literature

Even in his final days, Christopher Hitchens was having active discussions about novels, poems and plays. He understood how much was at stake in literature.

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