chestas@aus.socialYesterday, I dropped into the library and picked up High Windows, Philip Larkin's brilliant poetry collection. I became interested in Larkin when I went to university in Hull. He had been the librarian at the university, but died just after I arrived so I never saw him. He was legendarily reclusive, so I probably wouldn't have seen him anyway!
High Windows has one of his most famous poems:
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.