In one of his four essays regarding the poems of Philip Larkin, Clive James speaks of the “irresistible fragments” in the poems as one’s way into Larkin’s work. Then I decided to list a few of my own irresistible fragments that I have found in Larkin’s poems over the years. What I hope is that these irresistible fragments will cause you to read some of Larkin’s entire poems.

Philip Larkin was never married though he had long affairs with several women. At one point, he had affairs with three women at the same time. I was surprised to learn recently that one of the women he had a long affair with was Maeve Brennan, a writer whose works I have read and enjoyed considerably. That must have been quite a match. (Wrong – she is another Maeve Brennan, see comments below.)

Here are some irresistible fragments from the work of Philip Larkin.

From “Send No Money”    (1962) :

“Sit here, and watch the hail

of occurrence clobber life out

to a shape no one sees –

Dare you look at that straight?”

Kingston on Hull, Larkin’s adopted hometown

From “Ignorance”   (1955) :

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure

of what is true or right or real,

But forced to qualify or so I feel,

or Well, it does seem so;

Someone must know.

From “Toads”    (1954)

Why should I let the toad work

Squat on my life?

Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork

And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils

with its sickening poison –

Just for paying a few bills,

That’s out of proportion.

From “Going, Going”    (1972)

And that will be England gone,

The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,

The guildhalls, the carved choirs.

There’ll be books; it will linger on

In galleries, but all that remains

For us will be concrete and tyres.

From “Wild Oats”    (1962)

Parting, after about five

Rehearsals, was an agreement

That I was too selfish, withdrawn,

And easily bored to love.

Well useful to get that learnt.

I am going to end with an entire short poem of Larkin’s which is one of my all-time favorites of all poetry.

“Talking in Bed”      (1960)

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently,

Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest

Builds and disperses clouds about the sky.

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.

None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why

At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.