2. What the Poem is About

 Broadcast is a love poem from Larkin to a woman called
Maeve Brennan.
 The poem consists of Larkin expressing his feelings
towards Maeve using his dislikes as a bridge between
them.
 Larkin uses the music to try and connect with Maeve.
 On first glance the poem seems to be another depressing
poem; it could be seen to be about death – ‘your gloves
unnoticed on the floor’, ‘new, slightly-outmoded shoes’, ‘I
lose all but the outline’

3. Larkin’s Techniques

Rhyming Scheme
– Doesn’t change;
like their love?
A Giant whispering and coughing from
B Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
A Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
C ‘The Queen’, and huge resettling. Then begins
C A snivelling of the violins:
B I think of your face among all those faces,
Anthropomorphism
– Making an object
seem alive: creates
the objects to seem
worse than they are
Caesura –
Punctuation in
the middle of
the sentence
Pathetic Fallacy –
Autumn is mentioned,
which is the end of
summer; could be linked
to his love ending

4. Links to Other Poems

 Arundel Tomb: Romantic views of love, an artistic
look upon love linking to music which is one of the
romantic arts.
 Love Songs in Age: Talks of music telling a story,
main focus is how love and music link together.
 Wild Oats: Reinforces how Larkin goes for women
out of his leagues.

5. Context

 Larkin feels that the woman he loves doesn’t love
him as much as she loves music, this could be why
he makes the music sound bad as he wishes that she
loved him more.
 After reading Maeve’s response to the poem it is
obvious that she see’s Larkin as a friend as she seems
to feel that the poem is more of a joke.