Philip Larkin answering a question about what the genesis of a poem is

If I could answer this sort of question, I’d be a professor rather than a librarian. And in any case, I shouldn’t want to. It’s a thing you don’t want to think about. It happens, or happened, and if it’s some thing to be grateful for, you’re grateful.

I remember saying once, I can’t understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems; it’s like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife. Whoever I was talking to said, They’d do that, too, if their agents could fix it.

13 thoughts on “Philip Larkin answering a question about what the genesis of a poem is

  1. Interesting. I think you guys are right, that it is difficult to qualify as a method, unlike perhaps writing a formulaic type of novel, such as a romance novel or a mystery. At least that is the case with some of the best free form verse today.

  2. Yes! I am really allergic to all this ‘this is how to write’ talk, but I feel guilty about it. Thanks to you (and Philip Larkin), I will not feel guilty any longer.

  3. The ink flows from my veins to the page and what it creates, it creates. Theres no need to analyse it, in fact to do so would perhaps sully the imagination or mystique about the piece. I always find it interesting how people interpret my poems. I have on many occasions been surprised by them.

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