The Poetry of Philip Larkin

Church Going by Philip Larkin is about a man who has lost his faith in the world and looking to find God, but feels God isn't on the same wavelength as those who run the churches. He only goes inside a church if "there's nothing go on," feeling like the patrons aren't doing the work of God outside of Sunday service and wonders if God is really inside the church on the other days when no one cares. When he goes inside, he notes the church feels empty and the flowers are "brown," as if the patrons of the church don't care about it enough to take care of them or to throw them away. He wonders if the church really "cleaned or restored" people by baptizing them, through the power of God or their efforts are a lost cause.

He tells us, "the place was not worth stopping for," but then tells us, he "often does stop there," leaving us to wonder if he is going from church to church. Does he expect something to happen or is looking for something to feel that he hasn't found? He admits he feels a "loss" of spirituality, feeling empty.

I noticed how he says, "When churches fall completely out of us. . ." and not "if." Does he believe churches are doomed for extinction? I think he believes people will no longer need churches because of their lost faith or wickedness and churches will no longer have a reason to exist. He thinks we will turn churches into barns, shelters, or ghost towns when no longer using them for religious purposes such as "marriage, birth, and death," and the future generations will not even know what they are.

He wonders if the future generations will even recognize the churches as anything else but a old burial ground, that "so many dead lie around." He wonders if the future generations didn't know what a church was for, would they will "seek" God on their own or do churches and God have to go hand in hand.

He says, "Our superstition, like belief must die and what remains when disbelief has gone?," wondering if one day people will think of God as a nice story, but nothing else. I believe he is losing hope in his quest and expects others will feel the same. He says, "It please me to stand in silence here," as he likes trying to talk to God without other things, such as man, getting in his way.

Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin is an ironic title about a couple who are having a hard time communicating with each other. They are only talking in their own minds and are separated from each other by darkness and silence. I noticed how all the stanzas are three lines, instead of two. I believe the lines were purposely set up that way as a metaphor for the distance, lack of communication between the couple, or them needing therapist as a third party to help them. They both find it "difficult to find words" to bring them closer together and to recapture what they once had, but neither one tries or knows how to resolve their loneliness.

A bed is considered one of the most intimate places a couple shares, yet this couple feels estranged while lying next to each other. It is a place where you give yourself completely to someone else, yet you can be close but far away from each other, mentally. This couple feels "isolation" They feel the "wind's incomplete unrest" even though they are inside. Even the weather echoes their estranged and unhappy situation.