Philip Larkin: Collected Poems
£11.30£14.20 (-20%)
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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Additional information
| Publisher | Faber & Faber (17 Feb. 2003) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 240 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0571216544 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0571216543 |
| Dimensions | 13.21 x 2.29 x 20.07 cm |
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 Linda J Woollams
Partner has always liked Larkin. Nice collection.
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 J. McDonald ????????????????????????????
“This Be The Verse”; I discovered Larkin`s poetry for myself while still at school in the 70s – his work was in the poetry textbooks, but it wasn’t on the curriculum – he’s always been one of my favourite poets.
This edition of the collected poems is fine for further exploring his oeuvre; like anyone else I am familiar with some poems but there are plenty more to find (and enjoy) in this dedicated volume.
It isn`t the complete edition of his work, but it makes a great introduction/reference to Larkin`s poetry for the layman.
by reluctantlyaging
Good introduction to poetry
by Chris West
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.
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 Amazon Customer
Book good condition as a gift