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Philip Larkin: Collected Poems
Philip Larkin Collected Poems by Philip Larkin Paperback Book The Cheap Fast
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Philip Larkin Collected Poems By Philip Larkin,Anthony Thwaite
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Philip Larkin: Collected Poems (Faber Poetry) by Larkin, Philip Paperback Book
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1st Print Collected Poems Philip Larkin 1988 Marvell Press & Faber & Faber
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Philip Larkin - Collected Poems - Philip Larkin
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Since its publication in 1988, Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems has become essential reading on any poetry bookshelf. This new edition returns to Larkin’s own deliberate ordering of his poems, presenting, in their original sequence, his four published books: The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. It also includes an appendix of poems that Larkin published in other places, from his juvenilia to his final years – some of which might have appeared in a late book, if he had lived.
Preserving everything that he published in his lifetime, this new Collected Poems returns the reader to the book Larkin might have intended: it is, for the first time, Larkin’s ‘own’ collected poems.
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by R. Wilkinson
I thought this was a bunch poems picked by Philip Larkin. It turns out that, just like Norman Wisdom on Desert Island Discs, the set list is all his own stuff. No one else gets a look in.
Anyway, turns out to be quite good.
Every cloud and all that.
by Scampo
Well – five stars and ten if I could; but then I’ve been a fan of Larkin for such a long time. What a wonderful poet he was and he’s left us with a very fine legacy indeed. From the incomparable poem “Church Going”:
A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.
Philip Larkin – The Less Deceived
I bought this as a Christmas present for a friend. As a gift, I think it’s better than the new “Complete Poems” in many ways, as a gift at least or for someone new to Larkin.
by andrew grimes
In spite of its low price, this is a luxury object, worthy of a conspicuous place on the top shelf of anybody’s verse collection. The book is beautifully bound and printed, easy to hold in the hand on buses and trains and planes, and also in bed, preferably in the company of a literate and good-humoured beautiful woman. Larkin is a maestro of the slick and cutting put-down, but also compellingly humane. His language seems deceptively ordinary, but dig half a centimetre beneath its surface and you strike gold. He is one of the five very great English poets of the 20th century. This edition is a credit to its publishers and to its typographers. One hundred out of a hundred. Buy two or three copies in case you are foolish enough to give two away, and have the third one nicked by an evil party guest. Andrew Grimes
by E-Train26
perfect condition, excellent delivery at a fair price. exactly as required
by Kindle Customer
A really nice collection, I’ve bookmarked so many of the poems. I just love his attitude to normal life and the way he puts that across in his poems.
by Giorgio Rico
Tutto perfetto! Gran bella edizione, non me l’aspettavo! Un autore tutto da scoprire, nell’immaginario di un mondo ormai svuotato di poesia.
by Victoria
good condition
by Nick Geurr
It’s a pleasure to read through the compiled works of some of Philip Larkins best poems.
by Frank 9
Larkin dignifies a number of the most difficult and sometimes embarrassing aspects of life with some of the most sharp, concise and precise language in poetry. It’s a remarkable skill that can organise into such demanding forms language which reads so naturally as to often be almost colloquial while exploring experience with ruthless, investigative clarity.
Captain Beefheart said, “Poetry is scary to me. I think Philip Larkin may be the best poet I’ve ever read.”
by StephM
Philip Larkin is one of the most widely read and best-loved poets of the English speaking world. This may be due to the accessibility of his poems which, in spite of their metrical intricacies and subtle construction, often appear colloquial and do not shun even strong language. A thought entrusted to a friend or lover at night, a witty if dejected remark about life in a pub just before curfew – such are the scenes, in which the poems could be placed.
A recurrent theme of many poems is the uneasiness of being: The astonishing fact that man finds it hard to define his place in life (Ignorance), the difficulty of finding a place that could rightfully be called home (Places, Loved Ones), the strong wish to be alone (Wants). Profound sadness cloaks much of Larkin’s oeuvre, and wisdom springing from defeat is at the heart of the poem’s sad profundity.
Philip Larkin is a master of many lyrical forms. Formal constructions like sonnets (e.g. Spring) or quatrains in couplets (Money, Cut Grass) alternate with less well defined but usually rhymed forms.
Philip Larkin’s slender and yet encompassing oeuvre is one of the must reads in poetry. It is one of the collections of poems I frequently turn to for consolation.
by simoom
Larkin’s philosophical melancholic self-questioning and the extraordinary beauty of his language is – for me – the closest to the Keatsian quote ”Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Contemplating the absurdity of our existence and simultaneously, its wonder, in language both simple and profound. As a human being Larkin had many flaws, but despite his often cynical, sometimes obnoxious, comments and behaviour in life, in his work he was incredibly tender and sensitive. His poems about life and death and people are both moving and exact. “What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their long coats Running over the fields.”
by Anshu Dhamiwal
🙂
by Amazon Reader
A bit presumptuous to award stars to these amazing poems, which, to me anyway, strike exactly the right balance between approachability and the need to work at them a bit.
No, Larkin was not a perfect human being. Is anyone? I found James Booth’s ‘Philip Larkin, Life, Art and Love’ an excellent companion to revisiting these poems, setting them in the context of his life.