By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Written in August 1960, ‘Talking in Bed’ is one of Philip Larkin’s best-loved poems. It was published in his 1964 volume The Whitsun Weddings. Like many of his poems, ‘Talking in Bed’ takes a recognisable and relatable setting – two lovers lying in bed together – and then draws out from this small, specific scene in order to meditate on bigger, more existential questions.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Trees’ was written by Philip Larkin in June 1967, and published seven years later in his final collection, High Windows. One of Larkin’s most popular lyrics about nature, ‘The Trees’ is at once a celebration of nature and a poem about death.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin wrote ‘The Mower’ in early summer 1979, and the poem was published in Humberside, the magazine of the Hull Literary Club, in autumn that same year. It’s the last truly great poem Larkin wrote, and, like many of his poems, takes a very simple everyday scene as its focus. And, like many of Larkin’s poems, death is one of its main themes.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Toads’ is one of Philip Larkin’s most famous poems. When asked later in an interview how he came up with the idea for the toad as a metaphor for work, Larkin replied, ‘Sheer genius.’ He probably had his tongue in his cheek when he said this, but it is an inspired and instantly memorable analogy. Larkin wrote ‘Toads’ in 1954, and it was published a year later in his second collection, The Less Deceived.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin wrote several poems about religion, such as ‘Church Going’, and memorably described it as a ‘vast moth-eaten musical brocade’ in ‘Aubade’. Larkin had a sceptical attitude to religion, being an atheist and self-described ‘Anglican Agnostic’ – like Thomas Hardy, Larkin had a fondness for the language and literature of the Anglican Church.