Tag: larkin
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Born Yesterday: Philip Larkin at 100
The 100th anniversary of the poet Philip Larkin’s birth took place earlier this week. Larkin is an important poet for me, personally, yet I still somehow manage to underestimate the hold he has on the imagination of the British public. For better or worse, if you mention poetry in this country to someone who doesn’t…
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Tweeting Ourselves to Death
I was once part of a large, discussion-based event for secondary school students, where the organisers (I was one of them) tasked the participants with discussing whether social media was bad or good for the world. The arguments they came up with were, as you might expect, varied and nuanced, and, when they drafted them,…
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The Long Slide: Philip Larkin’s ‘High Windows’
Most writers dislike most of what they write most of the time but the savagery of Philip Larkin’s self-criticism still has the power to shock. In his workbook, the final three words of ‘High Windows‘ – ‘and is endless’ – are replaced by ‘and fucking piss’. This is not very helpful, given I’m going to…
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