‘Leaving home used to be a rite of passage’: Andrew O’Hagan on family, freedom and a generational divide
How long should it take to answer a Whatsapp? About a fortnight
Nell Frizzell
July 2023
Notebook
Move to halt church sell-offs chimes with Philip Larkin’s prophetic homage
Tim Adams
Dwindling attendance has led to the closure of 1,700 places of worship since a prescient 1954 poem wondered about their fate
May 2023
Amis, Hitchens and Larkin: bad behaviour and a messy personal life were once a gift for authors. Not any more
Martha Gill
Flaws used to feed their sales but now writers are expected to be saints
March 2023
From the Guardian archive
Philip Larkin: ‘writing in the language of ordinary people’ – archive, 1973
31 March 1973: Larkin talks about his approach to life and poetry as well as his efforts in editing the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse
December 2022
Notebook
Philip Larkin: a canary in the coalmine of cancel culture
Rachel Cooke
Hull University in midwinter provided a perfect backdrop for a centenary lecture series on its most famous librarian
September 2022
The Guardian view on Philip Larkin at 100: a lasting gift
Editorial: Whatever we may feel about the man, some things are eternal, and in his work he found the words for them
August 2022
They muck you up… Philip Larkin’s lament on sewage in our seas
Letter: Helen Taylor is impressed by the current relevance of the poem Going, Going, commissioned 50 years ago by the Department of the Environment
The week in audio: Larkin Revisited; In Suburbia; Inheritors of Partition; Out of Afghanistan
Simon Armitage unpicks Philip Larkin while Ian Hislop explores the land of net curtains. Elsewhere, the legacy of Partition and the thoughts of Afghan refugees in Britain
Philip Larkin flinched from intimacy – how would he have coped with social media?
A century after the poet’s birth, Imtiaz Dharker introduces her own poem about the grumpy great, Swiping left on Larkin
June 2022
Notebook
Philip Larkin’s profound and beautiful poetry sent me back to the classroom
Rachel Cooke
Nadhim Zahawi: axing Larkin and Owen poems for GCSE is cultural vandalism
May 2022
Carol Rumens's poem of the week
Poem of the week: Last Hope by Ben Wilkinson
This version of a sonnet by the French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine has a down-to-earth lyricism recalling Philip Larkin’s
April 2022
What I’ve learned from 10 years of therapy - and why it’s time to stop
Therapy was like finding a key for a door that had been locked my whole life. Here are the nine things it’s taught me
March 2022
I’m thrilled we’ll get to read John le Carré’s letters – but what can this dying art reveal?
Stephanie Merritt
And did those feet: 10 walks inspired by famous poets
February 2022
Brief letters
Pomp, circumstance and very bad poetry
This be the verse for the Queen’s jubilee: Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Elizabeth II
September 2021
Books that made me
Alan Johnson: ‘I read Animal Farm at 14 and it changed my life’
The author and former home secretary on disliking Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and his fondness for PG Wodehouse
August 2021
Piers Plowright obituary
Award-winning BBC radio producer whose fascination with people fuelled documentaries and drama
