Ignorance

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is right, or true, or real
But forced to qualify: Or so I feel
Or: Well, it does seem so,
Someone must know

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed
And willingness to change
Yes, it is strange

Even to wear such knowledge—for our flesh
surrounds us with its own decisions—
and yet spend all our lives on imprecisions,
that when we start to die
have no idea why.

Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin is the greatest vernacular poet in English of the twentieth century. Or was he? Does being a miserable git (and a gravely ideologically challenged miserable git at that, one might add) prevent you from being a great poet?

This is a poem of such dazzling cleverness one really does not know where to begin. One tiny, tiny point: compare the two occurrences of the word `or' in lines 3 and 4. The first one appears inside the quoted text, and the other outside it. Yet they sound the same....

Not all poems need to be read aloud; I think this one does....something to do with Larkin being a vernacular poet.

Click here for next week's poem
Click here for last week's poem

Return to Thomas Forster's home page