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This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were sloppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

And don't have any kids yourself.

Lately, I have read a good deal of poems by Philip Larkin, and one unifying factor that I have noticed is that Larkin never seems to use a filler. Every word in every one of his poems seems to be carefully crafted and placed, to the point where the flow and rhythm of the poem seem almost an accident. One poem I read that really stayed with me is the above poem, "This be the Verse." I will now show you how this poem, which at first glance seems to be written only to amuse, really has a much deeper meaning. I will examine the poem in several parts. First, I would like to examine the use of curse words in the poem, or why other words that would be considered more acceptable to the general public were not us

Like all of his poems, Larkin wrote "This be the Verse" with very careful planning and word placement. And even though this is a funny poem, it has a very deep message to share with the world. Everyone knows that the world is full of problems, and that hundreds of organizations are trying hard to fix all of the problems in order to make our lives better. However, as demonstrated in the poem, we can never absolve all our problems because we keep handing all of our flaws on to posterity. Thus, the human race will forever have problems, and although we work hard to decrease some, we will always have new problems, and there will never be a completely happy world. And this lesson can be applied to a smaller environment as well. All the way through a country's internal problems, a city's problems, a family's problems and the problems one has with oneself. No one can ever lead a perfectly happy life. There will always be problems to overcome.

Secondly, words such as fuck produce an atmosphere for adults, or mature people. One term that is used quite extensively lately is "adult language." This term branches off of the common idea that children should and would not use such words until they are older and have a more concrete knowledge of what they are really saying. Thus, by using a word such as fuck, Larkin creates a poem that will most likely not be read to children. Also, such a poem would not be read at certain social gatherings (i.e. church meetings) where such words are considered unacceptable, further narrowing the audience for this poem.

Larkin's poem is divided into three stanzas, each with it's own meaning and objectives. The first stanza is the introduction. As discussed above, the first stanza singles out a select group of people and builds Larkin's credibility with them. But beyond that, the first stanza also inspires several other feeling in the reader, just from the actual words it uses. The very first line, in fact, insults your own paren

Some common words found in the essay are:
Larkin Lately, Philip Larkin, poem read, words fuck, poem read children, human race, considered acceptable public, parents fault, reader larkin, feeling anger, blame shifted, acceptable public, using word, anger author,

Approximate Word count = 1326
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English