Love Songs in Age
Home is So Sad
A Study of Reading Habits
Reference Back
Dockery and Son
An Arundel Tomb
Talking in Bed
Afternoons
Faith Healing
Water
Broadcast
Mr Bleaney
Here
The Importance of Elsewhere
Ambulances
,POEM: Love Songs in Age
Content:
The speaker evokes an image of a widow, perhaps Larkin’s own mother, who rediscovers old sheet
music from her youth, mournfully remembering their hope, and their failure to fix the world as they
promised to
Aim:
To poignantly portray hope, nostalgia and disappointment – a reminder of the hope of youth and how
this fails to sustain us as we age
Tone:
Mournful, longing, sad, nostalgic, disappointed, disillusioned
Striking moments of sound and rhythm:
- ‘Each frank submissive chord/ Had ushered in/ Word after sprawling hyphenated
word’- enjambment acts as the rhythm of a song and youthful memories flooding in – the
chords are open and honest (‘frank’), but innocently lacking agency (‘submissive’) – the
sounds are beckoned (‘ushered’) – clinging on to the hope of youth despite the futility of this –
the physical blank space at the shortened line may emphasise this – sense that the sounds held
unfulfilled hope – ‘word’s enclose their line – repeated and the sense that they are all over the
place, uncontrolled and disjointed – overwhelming effect of memory
- ‘That hidden freshness sung’ – iambic feet – sense of melody emphasises the key words –
emulates youthful freedom – more devastating effect of realisation at the end
Key imagery/techniques:
- ‘They kept so little space’ – literally and figuratively – narrow life – they don’t take up much
room – other things became priorities
- ‘One bleached from lying in a sunny place,/’ – bleach (age and time) is damaging – sun has
positive connotations – could be a good memory – ‘One marked in circles by a vase of
water,’ – image of neglect – ‘One mended’ – trying to keep hold of her past/keep the hope of
youth close – anaphora intensifies the sense of ruin
- ‘Stood/ Relearning’ – enjambment reflects the pause before the rush of memory, discovering
something one had almost forgotten – but the notes cannot be unlearnt – like muscle memory
- ‘The unfailing sense of being young’ – ‘like a spring-woken tree’ – youthful optimism
that had been forgotten – bends time through the discovery of this music – suddenly coming
back to life, revived with hope – connotations of rebirth in the spring – darker undertones,
seasons change – youth is fleeting, as memory is
- ‘Still promising to solve, and satisfy,/… lamely admitting how/ It had not done so
then, and could not now’ – songs are almost mocking in their promise of joy/hope – she now
knows the reality of love and life – final rhyme is emphatic, mournful, painfully assured – love
will never be the same – she cannot love the way she loved before – the hope of youth
presented, with Larkin’s ever-present pessimism, as fleeting and false
Structure:
- Three octaves – in music, octaves have been described as ‘the basic miracle of music’ – effect of
the songs on the subject of the poem is profound – stanzas themselves reflect a musical pattern
with the regular rhyme scheme
- Enjambment employed throughout to emulate the continuous flow and rush of both music and
memory – ‘each frank submissive chord/ Had ushered in/ Word after sprawling
hyphenated word’- enjambment acts as the rhythm of a song and youthful memories flooding
in
- Poem could be about Larkin’s mother, although she is unnamed – 3 rd person narrative ‘she’
makes the poem universally applicable – also detaches the subject from the poem, reflecting the
distance between present and past – void between youth and the impact of experience and loss
Context:
- Although Larkin had well-documented relationships with women and wrote many letters to his
mother, there is no indication that this poem is based on anyone
Link to Duffy poems:
- Impact of time on youthful optimism and hope through the presentation of mother figures
Before You Were Mine
THEMES:
Nostalgia of youth, family relationships, ritual (music),
, POEM: Home is So Sad
Content:
The speaker describes a house without people in it, bleakly ironically referring to it as a ‘Home’, though
it seems to be a complete contrast – deprived of people to make comfortable, the house deteriorates
instead
Aim:
To explore the sadness of visiting home after an extended period of time, reflecting on the impact of
people on a house – a home without people is a shell, contained with empty vestiges of human life
Tone:
Sad, bleak, hopeless, mournful, disillusioned, wistful
Striking moments of sound and rhythm:
- ‘Home is so sad’ – metric variations emphasise the central word ‘home’ and add extra
metrical weight to the already intensifying ‘so’ – sets the poem’s mood – monosyllabic words –
childish quality, as if the speaker is trying to cling to the childhood they have left behind
- ‘Shaped to the comfort of the last to go/ As if to win them back’ – sibilance throughout
slows the lines down, giving them a whispered, soft, wistful quality – house presented with a
desperation, trying to appeal to those that have left, but to no avail
- ‘A joyous shot at how things ought to be,/ Long fallen wide’ – reference to archery, the
arrow has completely missed the target – the house’s hope is crushed by caesura and the line
break, its inability to bring back the past further emphasised by the stress on ‘long’ – brings in
ideas of regret and nostalgia for the past
Key imagery/techniques:
- ‘It withers so’ – it has been left to die – present participle presents this as an irreversible decay
– beyond the point of return
- ‘Look at the pictures and the cutlery./’ – bare, generic descriptions – the poem could
represent anyone’s house, but there is a prevalent sense of its isolation – it is utterly deserted
and ‘bereft’ (plosive forceful way of saying it is lacking something) of life, and so, purpose
- ‘The music in the piano stool.’ – music written to be played, but there is no one to play it,
nor anyone to hear and appreciate it – a house without people is not a home; it has no purpose
- The only two outstanding adjectives in the poem are ‘joyous’ and ‘sad’ – principle contrasting
points in the poem; the house as a home with people and life, and the empty state it is left to
decay in – ‘sad’ is simple and lacks grandeur – genuine emotion – reader almost sympathises
with the house as a person or a relic of their own lives
Structure:
- Written in iambic pentameter apart from the last line – like the state of the house, the rhyme
scheme and the meter withers at the end
- Rhyme scheme starts off regular – claustrophobic – constricting nature of the memories brought
about by the house
- Regularity gives the poem as physical box-like structure on the page – adds to sense of
claustrophobia
- ‘You can see how it was’ – shift into 2nd person perspective, directly addressing the reader –
universalises the poem, bringing the setting into sharper focus – almost as if the reader is
invited into the room with the speaker
Context:
- Inspired by a visit to Larkin’s mother after the death of his father, expressing a disillusionment
that runs through Larkin’s poetry
- Larkin once said he wanted his poems to be readable in a pub – this is certainly one of them –
lack of description allows the reader to fit their own shape into the vacant spaces of the poem
and the home alike
- ‘That vase.’ – poetry can be associated with vases – Ode on a Grecian Urn (John Keats 1819) –
vase could reflect failed poetry, diminished hopes and dreams – ambiguity: vases can be modest
household decorations or art – house is like a palimpsest of memories – the vase is isolated,
without flowers, doesn’t contain any life – further emphasised by caesura and its structural
isolation on the line t
Link to Duffy poems:
- The impact of people on domestic spaces – Disgrace, The Windows
- Loneliness, disappointment presented in domestic spaces – Room
THEMES:
Domestic spaces, family relationships, disillusionment, appearance vs reality, effect of grief
Home is So Sad
A Study of Reading Habits
Reference Back
Dockery and Son
An Arundel Tomb
Talking in Bed
Afternoons
Faith Healing
Water
Broadcast
Mr Bleaney
Here
The Importance of Elsewhere
Ambulances
,POEM: Love Songs in Age
Content:
The speaker evokes an image of a widow, perhaps Larkin’s own mother, who rediscovers old sheet
music from her youth, mournfully remembering their hope, and their failure to fix the world as they
promised to
Aim:
To poignantly portray hope, nostalgia and disappointment – a reminder of the hope of youth and how
this fails to sustain us as we age
Tone:
Mournful, longing, sad, nostalgic, disappointed, disillusioned
Striking moments of sound and rhythm:
- ‘Each frank submissive chord/ Had ushered in/ Word after sprawling hyphenated
word’- enjambment acts as the rhythm of a song and youthful memories flooding in – the
chords are open and honest (‘frank’), but innocently lacking agency (‘submissive’) – the
sounds are beckoned (‘ushered’) – clinging on to the hope of youth despite the futility of this –
the physical blank space at the shortened line may emphasise this – sense that the sounds held
unfulfilled hope – ‘word’s enclose their line – repeated and the sense that they are all over the
place, uncontrolled and disjointed – overwhelming effect of memory
- ‘That hidden freshness sung’ – iambic feet – sense of melody emphasises the key words –
emulates youthful freedom – more devastating effect of realisation at the end
Key imagery/techniques:
- ‘They kept so little space’ – literally and figuratively – narrow life – they don’t take up much
room – other things became priorities
- ‘One bleached from lying in a sunny place,/’ – bleach (age and time) is damaging – sun has
positive connotations – could be a good memory – ‘One marked in circles by a vase of
water,’ – image of neglect – ‘One mended’ – trying to keep hold of her past/keep the hope of
youth close – anaphora intensifies the sense of ruin
- ‘Stood/ Relearning’ – enjambment reflects the pause before the rush of memory, discovering
something one had almost forgotten – but the notes cannot be unlearnt – like muscle memory
- ‘The unfailing sense of being young’ – ‘like a spring-woken tree’ – youthful optimism
that had been forgotten – bends time through the discovery of this music – suddenly coming
back to life, revived with hope – connotations of rebirth in the spring – darker undertones,
seasons change – youth is fleeting, as memory is
- ‘Still promising to solve, and satisfy,/… lamely admitting how/ It had not done so
then, and could not now’ – songs are almost mocking in their promise of joy/hope – she now
knows the reality of love and life – final rhyme is emphatic, mournful, painfully assured – love
will never be the same – she cannot love the way she loved before – the hope of youth
presented, with Larkin’s ever-present pessimism, as fleeting and false
Structure:
- Three octaves – in music, octaves have been described as ‘the basic miracle of music’ – effect of
the songs on the subject of the poem is profound – stanzas themselves reflect a musical pattern
with the regular rhyme scheme
- Enjambment employed throughout to emulate the continuous flow and rush of both music and
memory – ‘each frank submissive chord/ Had ushered in/ Word after sprawling
hyphenated word’- enjambment acts as the rhythm of a song and youthful memories flooding
in
- Poem could be about Larkin’s mother, although she is unnamed – 3 rd person narrative ‘she’
makes the poem universally applicable – also detaches the subject from the poem, reflecting the
distance between present and past – void between youth and the impact of experience and loss
Context:
- Although Larkin had well-documented relationships with women and wrote many letters to his
mother, there is no indication that this poem is based on anyone
Link to Duffy poems:
- Impact of time on youthful optimism and hope through the presentation of mother figures
Before You Were Mine
THEMES:
Nostalgia of youth, family relationships, ritual (music),
, POEM: Home is So Sad
Content:
The speaker describes a house without people in it, bleakly ironically referring to it as a ‘Home’, though
it seems to be a complete contrast – deprived of people to make comfortable, the house deteriorates
instead
Aim:
To explore the sadness of visiting home after an extended period of time, reflecting on the impact of
people on a house – a home without people is a shell, contained with empty vestiges of human life
Tone:
Sad, bleak, hopeless, mournful, disillusioned, wistful
Striking moments of sound and rhythm:
- ‘Home is so sad’ – metric variations emphasise the central word ‘home’ and add extra
metrical weight to the already intensifying ‘so’ – sets the poem’s mood – monosyllabic words –
childish quality, as if the speaker is trying to cling to the childhood they have left behind
- ‘Shaped to the comfort of the last to go/ As if to win them back’ – sibilance throughout
slows the lines down, giving them a whispered, soft, wistful quality – house presented with a
desperation, trying to appeal to those that have left, but to no avail
- ‘A joyous shot at how things ought to be,/ Long fallen wide’ – reference to archery, the
arrow has completely missed the target – the house’s hope is crushed by caesura and the line
break, its inability to bring back the past further emphasised by the stress on ‘long’ – brings in
ideas of regret and nostalgia for the past
Key imagery/techniques:
- ‘It withers so’ – it has been left to die – present participle presents this as an irreversible decay
– beyond the point of return
- ‘Look at the pictures and the cutlery./’ – bare, generic descriptions – the poem could
represent anyone’s house, but there is a prevalent sense of its isolation – it is utterly deserted
and ‘bereft’ (plosive forceful way of saying it is lacking something) of life, and so, purpose
- ‘The music in the piano stool.’ – music written to be played, but there is no one to play it,
nor anyone to hear and appreciate it – a house without people is not a home; it has no purpose
- The only two outstanding adjectives in the poem are ‘joyous’ and ‘sad’ – principle contrasting
points in the poem; the house as a home with people and life, and the empty state it is left to
decay in – ‘sad’ is simple and lacks grandeur – genuine emotion – reader almost sympathises
with the house as a person or a relic of their own lives
Structure:
- Written in iambic pentameter apart from the last line – like the state of the house, the rhyme
scheme and the meter withers at the end
- Rhyme scheme starts off regular – claustrophobic – constricting nature of the memories brought
about by the house
- Regularity gives the poem as physical box-like structure on the page – adds to sense of
claustrophobia
- ‘You can see how it was’ – shift into 2nd person perspective, directly addressing the reader –
universalises the poem, bringing the setting into sharper focus – almost as if the reader is
invited into the room with the speaker
Context:
- Inspired by a visit to Larkin’s mother after the death of his father, expressing a disillusionment
that runs through Larkin’s poetry
- Larkin once said he wanted his poems to be readable in a pub – this is certainly one of them –
lack of description allows the reader to fit their own shape into the vacant spaces of the poem
and the home alike
- ‘That vase.’ – poetry can be associated with vases – Ode on a Grecian Urn (John Keats 1819) –
vase could reflect failed poetry, diminished hopes and dreams – ambiguity: vases can be modest
household decorations or art – house is like a palimpsest of memories – the vase is isolated,
without flowers, doesn’t contain any life – further emphasised by caesura and its structural
isolation on the line t
Link to Duffy poems:
- The impact of people on domestic spaces – Disgrace, The Windows
- Loneliness, disappointment presented in domestic spaces – Room
THEMES:
Domestic spaces, family relationships, disillusionment, appearance vs reality, effect of grief
