Nathaniel's Reviews > Collected Poems

Because the section of Larkin's "Early Poems" makes the final third of this collection a rather unrewarding slog, "Collected Poems" sat on my "currently reading" shelf for nearly a year. Then I decided that I didn't need to read every one of the poems that Larkin himself downplayed and shuffled from the spotlight in order to consider this book "read." I read it, from page 3 to page 221 and now and then, in disappointed little moments, I read bits of the final hundred pages.

Before I try describing Larkin's poetry and try understanding why I like him, let me devote a few sentences to people with less time. Read: "Solar;" "The Building;" "The Old Fools;" and "Aubade." These are longer poems, crafted around Larkin's favorite themes in some of his best language. They are sharp, entertaining, acidic and reduced. If you don't enjoy them, I don't think you should bother with Larkin's shorter, less thoughtful (and often mopier) pieces. After these, if you still have a taste, try reading "If, My Darling;" "At thirty-one, when some are rich;" "Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album" and "Dockery and Son." From there, I think it is all downhill--not far and not horribly; but downhill nonetheless.

Often, Larkin's poems proceed in relatively normal narrative English only to reach their justification in well-condensed phrases that seem to resonate with existential despair:

"stumbling up the breathless stair/ To burst into fulfillment's desolate attic."

"sat through days of thin continuous dreaming;"

or, of Religion, "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade/ Created to pretend we never die."

He has a knack for reducing things, for articulating the non-participant's, curmudgeonly perspective, complete with well-deployed informal profanity. He atomizes adornment, ceremony and cheerfulness, holding them by the tips of his fingers, as if they reek.

It entertains me that he describes three married couples as follows:

"Adder-faced singularity
Espouses a nailed-up childhood,
Skin-disease pardons
Soft horror of living,
A gabble is forgiven
By chronic solitude."

It entertains me because it is typical of him to reduce people to their worst, and typical that he goes on to rob these unions of their romance by depicting them all "tarnish[ing] at quiet anchor." In Larkin's poetry, context will always get you in the end. Senility beckons, death looms, promises are already breaking and every man outmaneuvers himself in an effort to avoid the fear of all that is failed and meaningless.

Still, it's good fun. He's one of the most winning grouches I remember reading and was probably an excellent drunk.