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This volume contains the poet's own selection of his best work, and ranges from his first book, "Home Truths", which was published in 1953, to his latest collection, "Letters from Tokyo". Anthony Thwaite is also the editor of "Six Centuries of Verse". ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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A selection of poems, made by the author, to celebrate his 77th birthday. ... Read more

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This is the most authoritative and up to date survey of contemporary British poetry 1960-1995. It is the third version but second edition published by Longman of a successful survey that first appeared 30 years ago, and provides a succinct and accessible overview of British poets, movements and themes, ideal for English courses and the general reader alike. ... Read more

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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. Collected Poems brings together not only all his books--The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows--but also his uncollected poems from 1940 to 1984.

This new edition reflects Larkin's own ordering for his poems and is the first collection to present the body of his work with the organization he preferred. Preserving everything he published in his lifetime, the new Collected Poems is an indispensable contribution to the legacy of an icon of twentieth-century poetry.
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Customer Reviews (34)

Tremendously Gratifying Experience
I was curious about Larkin because I kept hearing that he wrote salty poetry, and managed to be famous at the same time. None of the poems I ever heard seemed particularly blue, but my curiosity finally got the best of me. What a surprise. Plain spoken, carefully crafted, clearly the work of a fellow life long bachelor which gave him a wry sense of humor about things that others might take all too seriously. And touching as well. "Born Yesterday," a dedication poem for a child is exceptionally tender--none of that stiffness that others evince in occasional poems. His evocations of jazz come from an equally honest place, completely uncliched writing. And what work a day poet couldn't see himself in Larkin's two toad poems about the need to sweat out a living while aspiring to art. And yes, there are a couple of poems with what might be considered salty diction--by my grandmother; but I'd rather have such straightforward honesty in my poets any day instead of the turgid, recondite, I'm smarter than you and I'm not about to let you forget it stuff that's sure to be consigned to the footnotes of history while they're still reading Larkin for pleasure.

Misleading
Why does my version of this very book by Thwaites only contain 120+ of Larkin's poems and not the full 240 or so. Pretty lame to advertise it as otherwise Amazon. Pretty lame.

An elegaic poet of considerable power and grace.
I highly recommend this to readers who value traditonal use of the English language and rare gifts with expressing this melancholy view of his life and times.

Buy This Book Now!!
Philip Larkin wrote some of the most perfect poems written in the English language, and this well-edited collection proves it. If that sounds like hyperbole, then you really need to get ahold of some of Larkin's poems ("Sad Steps" or "Church Going" are both good places to start). If they don't change your mind, then we have very different definitions of great poetry.

Though I'm willing to admit that his first book (which is included in this collection), The North Ship, is apprentice-work and isn't top-notch, every book after it is the work of a virtuoso, chock-full of original, insightful, and flawlessly crafted poetry.

Though Larkin might not be for the feint of heart (he has a rather dark take on the world, very similar to that of his poet-hero Thomas Hardy), his poems are brazenly honest, intelligent, funny, and inspired. And whether or not you agree with everything in them, his poems are still breathtaking, often celebratory works of art that need to be read to be believed.

Easy beyond recognition
Some say Philip Larkin is not even a poet, but a kind of social observer. Perhaps they do not catch the richness hidden in a very simple verse or do not accept a non-obscure modern writer. This editon shows poems in chronological order, which is good, but lacks more information about Larkin. ... Read more

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Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. The congenial attitude comes from a poetical history of about a millennium and a half. This classic collection of verse therefore contains poetry from the earliest, primitive period, through the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo periods, ending with modern poetry from 1868 onwards, including the rising poets Tamura Ryuichi and Tanikawa Shuntaro. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Gentle and remote Beauty I do not really understand
This anthology contains samples of Japanese poetry from all its major periods. It contains a long introduction which focuses on Japanese prosody and the particular and special qualities of Japanese as a language. I felt while reading it that I could never really get the feel of the poetry without knowing Japanese. This does not mean the translations do not make for interesting reading. But there is something very repetetive about them. The poems are short and in small lines. Japanese poetry is syllabic and depends a good deal on assonance and alliteration. It also depends on a kind of tonal language which I suspect simply does not translate. The poems are often about Nature, or rather the human perception of and encounter with nature. Often there is sadness and loss in them and a kind of fading loneliness.There is often a certain kind of gentle and remote Beauty in them. There are different kinds of poems for instance one set written by soldiers guarding the frontier has a strong Stoic quality. Among the major form of Japanese poetry, are the tanka, and for Western readers,the haiku. While the anthology provides short biographies of the writers it does not give any kind of real individual analysis of major figures like Basho, Buson, Issa. The poetry is pervaded by a sense of the fleetingness of the moment, of life, of time. It is without any kind of extensive narrative or speculation or even reflection. It is a poetry of hint and suggestion, of concision, of fragmentary perception. I often had the sense that I simply did not get a poem did not have the kind of flash of intuition which I suspect is required to understand most of these poems. I certainly had by myself no tool for, no means of distinguishing truly between the better poems and the lesser ones.

by all means place a special order
I stumbled across this book at a garage sale in southside Chicago.Thoughthen 15 years old, it still had its cellophane wrapping intact.I pity thepeople who had it for so long and never peeked in, because it is abeautiful collection of poetry.It samples a wide range, from around 1000a.d. to the 20th century (much of it tanka and haiku).At around 200 pagesthe book is a bit short for the task, but what is here is superblyrendered, and many of these poems can fill an afternoon with reveries. Ihave taken this book with me everwhere. ... Read more