Reciting “This Be The Verse” by Philip Larkin

Poetry Lunch S6E12

Reciting “This Be The Verse” by Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, Farrar Straus & Giroux.

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And that’s a wrap for Season 6! Concluding three years of this little poetry lunch that’s brought so much good connection and made me read so many more books. Thanks for being here and I will see you next year, just not sure when given a big new project in the works that launches next spring ;)

I love this poem for how abrupt and hilariously spot on it calls the painful reality of family legacy. No matter how hard any of us try, above and below we carry and pass on really hard stuff. What’s the antidote? Love. Compassion. And continuing despite!

Lots of love to all and wishes for a true sense of peace at this years end, wherever it finds you and no matter with whom. It is possible to transform fucked-up-ness to wholeness, but gosh does it take forever and ‘whole’ includes all the shit too, just in a more conscious and accepting sort of way. Sigh. It’s hard to be human!

Whether you’ve got kids or parents or both, may you find ever wider ways to let go the misery or at the very least find some good hearty laughs in it.

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Links to Purchase

Get the book: Collected Poems by Philip Larkin, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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About the Author

Philip Larkin was born in Coventry, England in 1922. He worked in libraries his entire life, as well as publishing several novels and many essays and reviews. One of the best-known and best-loved poets of the English-speaking world, Philip Larkin had only a small number of poems published during his lifetime. You can read more about his life on his Poetry Foundation profile here.