TWA Poet: Philip Larkin

1922-1985

It's the birthday of the man the British voted (in 2003) their favorite poet of the past half-century: Philip Larkin, born in Coventry, England, on this day in 1922.

He was a librarian for 30 years and a lifelong stoic. He once said, "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth." Critic Eric Homberger said that Philip Larkin had "the saddest…