The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Larkin, Philip. “This Be The Verse.” Poetry Foundation Online. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse.

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

“This Be The Verse” is a 12-line iambic tetrameter lyric poem written by postwar English poet and librarian Philip Larkin. Composed sometime in 1971, it was first published that year in the quarterly literary magazine New Humanist. In 1974 Larkin included the poem in High Windows, his final volume of new poetry. Featuring Larkin’s trademark blend of traditional poetic structures with bleak themes drawn from everyday British life and language, the poem has achieved monumental status in English letters. With a message about the cyclical nature of trauma, “This Be The Verse” challenges life itself and serves both cathartic and didactic purposes.

The poem begins by recognizing the harmful influence parents can have on their children, whether intentional or not. The second stanza reveals that such parents were themselves the victims of bad parenting by an older generation. The third and final stanza declares this passing on of misery to be a fact of life and encourages readers to break the chain by escaping as soon as possible and not having kids of their own.