Naturally The Foundation Will Bear Your Expenses

The comet in stanza one is one of the first air crafts. Berkeley is a university in which he has given lectures. Stanza 2 is set when it is remembrance Sunday and the persona is trying to catch a plane, he then gets quite aggravated because his taxi is made late by all the people are in the streets paying respects. The persona seems very careless and selfish because all he wants to do is get his plane. The final stanza is how England manage this tribute makes him want to 'throw up' because he explains them to be quite childish and sentimental.

Toads Revisited

'Toads' is used as a metaphor for work. Despite how little Larkin/ The persona here despises work they do not want to be someone who doesn't work. Work is the routine lifestyle and Larkin doesn't like being without routine so the work gives him a purpose and groundness without it he would probably go mad so the reason he doesn't want to be without work is so he has that solid daily routine. I think also he thinks if he doesn't have a job he will think of himself as a failure almost because he uses words such as 'stupid or weak' to describe those people that are without work. He doesn't want to be weak or stupid because at the moment he is the total opposite. This poem is the answer to the poem 'Days' and it is a positive poem choice.

Take One Home For The Kiddies

The poem title itself is an old advertisement jingle and the poem is a parody on the advertisement. The poem is about children who craze and craze for a pet, and in the end the pet dies. It compares the pet to toys and shows that the pet to the children is just a game. They learn about death and loss through the pet and shows them that nothing is going to last forever.

The Large Cool Store

This is a poem that shows the person/Larkin looking down his nose upon the working class. We can assume that these are Larkin's views because we have seen him use similar opinions on other poems such as The Whitsun weddings. The shop in the poem is maybe one like marks and spencers although now this shop is known as quite a higher market it hasn't always been. We see this by the way that he describes the shop as selling 'nylon' clothes and this isn't an expensive material its one that is cheap and one that is easily produced. Which again we could compare to 'Sunny Prestatyn' where the girl in the poster is wearing satin which is an expensive luxurious fabric compared to nylon shows the contrast from working class to the more upper class is what they wear. The poem uses 'they'  and 'their' it shows that Larkin is excluding/ separating himself from the working class people and they all stay together.

Sunny Prestatyn

This poem contains casual sexism because back when this poem is set sexism wasn't such an unknown thing and it was more allowed than what it would be now. You could say this poem is about the distaste Larkin has towards the modern world or the sexist vandalism that we have going on throughout. The poem contains this laddish language which shows that probably the graffiti was done by some child. The language in the last few sentences of the second stanza is emphasizing how degrading this vandalism is. The person who has done this vandalism is almost proud of this work how he has signed his name onto it. The way the poem is written is violent ' stab' and 'knife' is how he has destroyed this poster and I imagine there to be very little of the poster left. 'Now the fight cancer is there' Next poster is a poster about cancer, cancer targets people and destroys them just like someone has destroyed the poster of the women. Back when this poem was written it was shown that women were more vulnerable than men which is probably why the women was on the poster because they are easier to target.

Essential Beauty

This poem just shows all the problems with advertising. The main problem is it gives people the wrong impression of what the product is going to be like. They are described as being 'Large, Block and giant' I think this shows how the advertisements are destroying the view of everything else. They say they 'cover slums with praise' almost trying to cover up all the bad things with something better an exaggeration of products. Use of the sentence 'high above the gutter' shows that people are higher in classes they are trying to advertise things they knew the poor couldn't afford the product and they live in this 'gutter' but the richer are above the gutter and on land. All the advertisement does is promote and make things sound better than what they are. It gives people false hope. The first stanza could be life from a child's view and then the second stanza life from an adults point of view and shows all the disappointment. People may want to have unrealistic adverts to escape from the reality of whats going on around them.

Afternoons

Its about the inevitability of change and the passing of youth. This poem shows strong features of the change and the growing up. Shows how parents have to let go of their children as they grow up 'unripe acorns' shows that maybe even the children aren't ready to grow up and move on. They explain situations and events that the parents and children have been in 'setting free their children' is clearly that they are allowing their children to grow up and move on and cope with their situations by themselves. This poem shows the change in society because this is back when mums were to stay at home and look after their children whilst the dad was off doing work but now in society it is just as equal because the mothers no longer have to stay at home they have the opportunity to go off and work instead of staying in with the children. The change of the marriage 'And the albums, lettered Our Wedding, lying' the memories are placed there at one point they would of been cared for and treasured and now they are just places and forgotten about.