This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin (read by Larkin)

[IlRezzonico]

I used to think this poem was a joke; a funny thing with some naughty words. But the older I get, the more I realise it's very profound and serious!

[bin1127]

To measure your capacity to nurture successfully your own child before bearing them is good advice. but then.... Kate plus 8 is probably making millions.

[GriefTourist]

Life as a loser is a fate worse than death....gift...don't fuckin think so

[RunsWithWeasels]

I want to learn this poem, so the next time someone asks if I'm going to have a child I can recite it to them so they'll get the damned point. My mother screwed me up badly--I didn't realize that she had or why she did until last November when she admitted the truth about her past. I won't have a child, period. I refuse to screw someone else up.

[Relugus]

@RunsWithWeasels The worst thing is parents who make stupid decisions against your wishes, or deny you your own choices, which turn your life into a trainwreck and then act as if its nothing to do with them. Controlling parents like being in charge but don't take responsibility for any of their mistakes, they leave you to clean it up.

[charliesechos]

YOU JUST MADE ME LOVE POETRY---I only stumbled on this because of Hichens love for Larkins' "Churchgoing"...I always have said that your parents are your 1st terrorist---This catches my thoughts as if I 'painted the corner' baseball reference when pitcher is 'ON'-while I still have my feelings of poetry and it's, well, say bullshit---I am glad you posted this as I am always glad to be surprised-even and specially if it shows me something I was unware of- I'm real my friends I have to BS-this NO!

[Relugus]

@charliesechos Society berates absent parents but controlling parents are actually more dangerous. The neglected child can define his/her own future, whereas a controlling mother will ruthlessly sabotage your social life and prevent you from defining yourself and living your own life, often stealing years, even decades, from what should have been your life. When parents do that, they don't "mean well", they do it out of selfishness.

[tommurphy67]

I love this poem. I think I will have a vasectomy, just to be sure.

[monixity]

Larkin is wonderful and dark as usual, but heres another perspective - a response to "This be the verse" by British poet Carol Rumens. This Be The Verse (Philip Lark in) Not everybody's Childhood sucked: There are some kiddies Not up-fucked. They moan and shout, Won't take advice. But - hang about - Most turn out nice - If not better Than us, no worse. Sad non-begetter, That bean't the verse.

[theguyinthefunnyhat]

I found this in a childrens poem book a while back. childrens best loved poems.

[LZJoZ]

This really makes me think about how Man is a habitable and impressionable creature in all reality.If when you're a kid or in your teens(Or even if you're "grown-up"),you say you don't see the point in getting married,having kids and settling down,you're laughed at.If you ask why the people you told it to are laughing,they'll tell you not to be silly."Everyone settles down and raises a family."But why?"Because it's just what people do."That's mankind.Habitable.Impressionab­le.Through and through.

[MrOphachew]

"Toxic Parents" by Dr. Susan Forward

Amen Philip Larkin

[TheNihilisticOne]

Mr Neil Super, you live in a dream world. I hope for your sake you never wake up.

[MrTycho7]

@TheNihilisticOne

O Nihilistic One, you live in a nightmare world. I hope for you sake you do wake up.

[TheNihilisticOne]

@MrTycho7

Agree with you wholeheartedly, Mr T: it is a nightmare world. Unfortunately, waking up from it is not an option. Conversely (and perversely) the only escape one can hope for is to fall asleep and never wake up. This be the hearse...

[MrTycho7]

@TheNihilisticOne

Your right, my response was a little glib and misleading. There are huge problems with the world we live in, including the greed, selfishness etc you mention - that is a reality we can't just shake off. What I should have said was that it would be a kind of blindness if we should fail to see the great goodness in the world too - the beauty of nature, family love, saintly lives etc. Even Larkin (in other poems) saw occasions for joy in the modern world.

[MrNeilSuper]

If one has not had a happy childhood, I can understand that they would agree with the sentiments of this poem, in a way I agree with it too. Being real about my how my parents (and other authority figures) treated me helped me unlock toxic emotions and this poem put me in touch with a lot of repressed anger. However it was not good for me to remain in anger and bitterness and resentment and cynicism. Writing my response was a way to try and surrender and send away those feelings.

[MrNeilSuper]

Man hands on happiness to man

like roses on a sunny shelf.

So thank your parents while you can,

and raise some happy kids yourself

[MrTycho7]

@MrNeilSuper

Amen.

[TheNihilisticOne]

@MrNeilSuper

You're right: anger, bitterness, resentment and cynicism are not good for you, me or anyone. Unfortunately they are the only rational response to a world in which greed, selfishness, arrogance, corruption, cruelty, malevolence and hypocrisy have been elevated to virtues and are held up as paradigms to which all “successful” individuals should aspire. Faced with the sheer perversity of the world one can never seem to be angry, bitter, resentful and cynical enough. But I try...

[MrOphachew]

@MrNeilSuper --Sadly, I wish I could honestly say that.

[rlathbury]

An irresistible poem. What I like best is that "fuck up," meaning to conceive, is identified with fouling, so that to produce a child is, inevitably, is to make something hopelessly defective. The title sounds like the introducing of a hymn--a delicious reversal of the sort of lesson one might hear in church. By the time you can understand to "get out as early as you can," it is too late. You've already been fucked up.

[daramuness098]

we were learning about Shakespeare and my teacher randomly started talking about this guy and recited it to us our whole class cracked up (when i was in year 8)

[Xam271]

that's how i explained to my fiane why i don't want to have kids. she agreed.

[ravenshireful]

a classic from one of our gr8test poets :)

[2010jamesmartin]

uhhh yes mmm more hit the g spot uhhhhh

[GRJones92hk]

Because of this poem people have stopped having kids. That's some powerful shit.

[Cielamouroux]

This poem becomes even greater when you appreciate the irony that Larkin (as usual) directs at himself by taking the title from R.L. Stevenson's poem about the epitaph he wishes to have engraved on his grave stone.

[MrHeslopian]

I love the way he says "get out." It sends a shiver down my spine each and every time.

[oye2a2000]

Very raw and honest, i love it

[unclezuck]

Great to hear it read by the author, thanks for posting!

[uhhhclem]

It really boils down to one line: "Man hands on misery to man." The rest is lagniappe.

[Peterh588]

'Fuck you up' is a double-entendre: Your parents first create you by fucking you up (like "whipping up" a dessert) and secondly by messing you up. The latter is the main meaning in view of their not meaning to do it. But surely they often do create their children intentionally. The first meaning I take as a pun and an irony; also a reminder of the ignoble word we use for the act that brings conception.

[TheNovaDream]

So true. Yet too many people give in to social pressures to have kids, without measuring the consequences.

[biologias3]

What are the "consequences" of having kids? Give in to social pressures to... what? You seem to me like a little frightened BAMBI. If you live with the person you love, you have kids and you fight for them. The NovaDream sounds to me like "saturday morning cartoons" or "hey, who took my candy!" Please, grow up! A teenager in his fifties is just pathetic. Don't be a coward. Show some courage!!!

[NoNameC68]

@biologias3 It was supposed to be humorous. My dad always told people "Don't get married." Tis for laughs.

[TheNovaDream]

@biologias3 - Oh dear you need to show courage, so you have, er... kids? How brave of you indeed, everybody is so grateful for your 'courage'! Please give me a break, you don't prove courage by having kids, that is just a pathetic motive. Also there is a difference between being a realist and being a coward. Childfree people are happy without judgmental people like you!

[stickyjam1]

@biologias3 What's your solution to teenage pregnancy, over population and fucked up kids then?

[tommurphy67]

@TheNovaDream I agree with you. If you look at the consequences of having kids rationally, without all the societal expectations, it is very easy convince yourself that it would be a terrible idea. There are so many unhappy children in the world already.

[observingworld]

I used to live 10 minutes bike ride from where he lived in Hull and I never knew.

[chopin65]

This poem was the first I read by Larkin. It was in a writing class. The teacher lent me a copy of his collected poems and I was hooked.

[darraghara]

What a splendid solution to the problem he poses at the end!

[ukulazy]

Is "they fuck you up" a pun / wordplay meaning conceive?

[mousegeek]

I've never interpreted it like that but who's to say :-)

[ukulazy]

"They may not mean to, but they do"!

And perhaps "Fill you with the faults they had" is the biological process of creating the physical flaws, rather than just the emotional scars haha.

[mousegeek]

You could see it that way. Poems can be read differently. A religious person, which I'm not, could read 'faults' as inherited Sin. That's the beauty of poetry.

[MikeRLloyd73]

@mousegeek and thats the way its always been and always will be.

[moppettshow]

@mousegeek No.

[zalmbreggin]

@mousegeek I'm to say

[iamlameduck]

I recently read a graduate student's essay in which "fuck" was interpreted as the act of conception. But that occludes the difference between "to fuck" and "to fuck up." I'd argue that one must consider the importance of the preposition in establishing contextual meaning. If he wrote "fuck up," isn't it more likely that it'd be a misreading if we merely examined the word "fuck?" If your house were burning and I said "Get out!" would you think, "Get. Hmm. What does he mean?"

[scuffy74]

@ukulazy Hello there. No, this is not a pun or an idiom or wordplay. It means that ones parents are responsible for the psyche.

[pureinhart]

yes it is.

[aaronb01]

@ukulazy yeah definatly, ive always thought that.

[mickigoe]

@ukulazy Absolutely not ! Larkin doesn't do trite pun.

[Scream0Sn1pe]

@ukulazy It is widely considered by many as having that double meaning, yes. The "May not mean to, but they do" could possibly allude to unplanned pregnancy as well.

[MsOrlandos]

it was my ma who introduced me to the poem at a time when i was rebelling against everyone and anyone, esp her lol, he could have put a bit of emotion into the reading dont you think, its very boring here, but a wonderful poem

[korinne09]

he was an asshole, but he was the only one who actually dared to present the truth naked and harsh as it really is. thus i respect him greatly

[PDN11141]

I love this poem, the older I the more it makes sense, my father introduced it to me, I like idea of being filled up with problems and the way 'it deepens like coastal shelf,' and the warning that I should have heeded! Four kids later!!!! It thrills me every time such irony. A favourite.

[SpokenVerse]

When I'm putting the children to bed I often think of these immortal lines: they tuck you up your Mum and Dad...

[bsheffield87]

The line is actually "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." A lot of his work was pretty straight-forward, and some pieces were almost vulgar without actually being vulgar.

[SpokenVerse]

I know.  It's a joke.

[laynasor]

excellent

[falstaffswims]

Not the most sensational line from this wonderfully sensational poem, but somehow this is what always gets me laughing out loud: "...fools in old-style hats and coats..." those words are just perfectly fucking hilarious. philip larkin may have been an asshole, but he was also blindingly brilliant, and funny as all hell.

[rubysson57]

@falstaffswims Oh, and may why he 'have been an arse hole' ? - No let me guess! Cos he wasnt some soft headed, wooly brained, beatnik, nig loving liberal. The bloke was a fucking genius. Get over it.

[rubysson57]

@falstaffswims I didnt say 'nigger' either. Now listen again, ersatz brain, you want to send me messages or  tell me I'm 'unschooled', then open your box so I can reply. Or just stick to the Cure, you silly little mug.

Poetry like Larkin's is for grown ups.

[AMULET72]

@falstaffswims I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM BUT WHY MIGHT HE HAVE BEEN AN ASSHOLE?

[RockAndRollMassacre]

bravo