“The Whitsun Weddings,” by Philip Larkin

This one’s for you, Whit and Cadence, ready to be loosed with all the power that being changed can give.

I read “The Whitsun Weddings” from Larkin’s  Collected Poems(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004).  Well, my copy’s actually an English edition from Faber, with one of their classy three-color paper covers, so I don’t have to look at his brilliant, cynical mug every time I pull it from the shelf. Then again, the poems are the same when either book is flat, open in your lap, aren’t they?

Here’s a link to the poem.