You know that Philip Larkin poem? You definitely do. Even if you don’t know anything about Philip Larkin you have probably heard: This Be the Verse They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do, They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early…
32 CommentsTag: National Poetry Month
That post title sounds celebratory, but actually it is urgent, because National Poetry Month is nearly over and I have still not gotten it together to write a post about poetry. And now that I am sitting down to do it, I’m not sure what to say, because I do not really understand my tastes in poetry and do not know how to explain them. Sometimes I will like a poem without exactly understanding it, just because of the strange and interesting ways the words have been put together; and then one day, I will be in the middle of…
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