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I Have Started to Say by Philip Larkin

I Have Started to Say
Philip Larkin

I have started to say
“A quarter of a century”
Or “thirty years back”
About my own life.

It makes me breathless
It’s like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.

All that’s left to happen
Is some deaths (my own included).
Their order, and their manner,
Remain to be learnt.

MARGINALIA

I turned a quarter of a century old last March. I wonder if I’ll ever make it to another.

ABOUT PHILIP LARKIN

Philip Larkin was born in Coventry, England in 1922. He earned his BA from St. John’s College, Oxford. He worked in libraries his entire life, first in Shropshire and Leicester, and then at Queen’s College in Belfast, and finally as librarian at the University of Hull. In addition to collections of poetry, Larkin published two novels—Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947)—as well as criticism, essays, and reviews of jazz music. The latter were collected in two volumes: All… (more)

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