In case you wondered …

… Is Larkin good for you? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Amis identified a major component of Larkin’s style when he emphasised the transparency of his poetry. There is also his signature lucidity and precision of expression as well as the impression we have that his poems are hardly aware of themselves as poetry in any grand or affected sense. His poetry fulfils Orwell’s ideal of good writing, in that it possesses the virtue of being as clear “as a windowpane”. To achieve such an effect in prose is rare, but to accomplish it in poetry is exceptional. Larkin manages to be supremely poetic by being self-consciously unpoetic.