In 1974, with High Windows about to appear, Larkin lamented in a letter that critics would have passed the word around - Donnez la côtelette à Larquin - give Larkin the chop. Of course he was wrong. The chorus of praise swelled higher than ever: with each slim volume the certainty and authority of the poems and their unique feel of personality left readers dazzled. Larkin first; the rest nowhere. And though no one said so - perhaps fellow-poets were too envious - they showed how indispensable rhyme-schemes as subtle yet as traditional as his could still be.

LRB 22 April 1993 | PDF Download