Philip Larkin - Poems Quotes

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I have no ideas about poetry at all. For me, a poem is the crossroads of my thoughts, my feelings, my imaginings, my wishes, and my verbal sense: normally these run parallel; often two or more cross; but only when all cross at one point do you get a poem.

Philip Larkin

I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.

Philip Larkin

The quickest way to start a punch-up between two British literary critics is to ask them what they think of the poems of Sir John Betjeman

Philip Larkin

A poem is usually a highly professional artificial thing, a verbal device designed to reproduce a thought or emotion indefinitely: it shd have no dead parts, and every word should be completely unchangeable and unmoveable.

Philip Larkin

Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems.

Philip Larkin

I am afraid the compulsion to write poems left me about seven years ago, since when I have written virtually nothing. Naturally this is a disappointment, but I would sooner write no poems than bad poems.

Philip Larkin

It is fatal to decide, intellectually, what good poetry is because you are then in honour bound to try to write it, instead of the poems that only you can write.

Philip Larkin