A Poem About Waiting, and Wishing You Had a Drink

Our critic A.O. Scott walks you through a poem that speaks to his mood right now. It’s called “Party Politics,” but it’s not about those parties, or those politics.

Isabella Cotier

By A.O. Scott

Nov. 1, 2024

If you ever see me at a party, I’ll most likely be standing off to the side, looking slightly lost, staring down into my glass. Perhaps you’re that way too — introverted, awkward, thirsty. Nice to meet you. And since we’re here, may I introduce you to my friend Philip? Or perhaps you’ve already met.

0Party  1Politics  2by  3Philip  4Larkin 

5I  6never  7remember  8holding  9a  10full  11drink. 

12My  13first  14look  15shows  16the  17level  18half-way  19down. 

20What  21next?  22Ration  23the  24rest,  25and  26try  27to  28think 

29Of  30higher  31things,  32until  33mine  34host  35comes  36round? 

37Some  38people  39say,  40best  41show  42an  43empty  44glass: 

45Someone  46will  47fill  48it.  49Well,  50I’ve  51tried  52that  53too. 

54You  55may  56get  57drunk,  58or  59dry  60half-hours  61may  62pass. 

63It  64seems  65to  66turn  67on  68where  69you  70are.  71Or  72who. 

No one would call “Party Politics” a masterpiece: Commissioned for a 1984 issue of Poetry Review devoted to “Poetry and Drink,” it didn’t appear in any of the books issued in Larkin’s lifetime. But it shares the qualities of some of his best poems. Larkin is prized for his blunt honesty about the inevitability of disappointment, and for the stoicism and virtuosity that lighten the gloom.

In this dry little doggerel, the snap of the rhymes and the tightness of the lines deliver bad news with high spirits. The experience in the poem is muddle, frustration, resignation, but the experience of the poem is the opposite.

It’s composed in what are called heroic or elegiac stanzas — four lines of iambic pentameter, with alternating end rhymes — a form associated with doughty schoolbook lyrics like John Dryden’s ode to Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” That lofty pedigree is surely part of the joke. The occasion here is anything but heroic.

These neat little quatrains go down smooth, clean and strong, like a well-mixed martini — which is just what this fellow desperately needs.

Or not quite: He has a drink in his hand, but he’s worried about what will happen when he finishes it. He’s already gulped down half, and finds himself in the literal version of a classic metaphorical conundrum. Is the glass half empty, or half full?

This philosophical quandary implies a practical dilemma: Should he nurse the drink or finish it? The urgency of this question supplies some clues to our friend’s character. He is not a man who’s likely to be satisfied with just one drink, which is to say in nonalcoholic terms that he is incapable of being content with what he has, of living in the moment.

This is where the politics come in. The bait-and-switch title is a groaner, a lifelong bachelor’s idea of a Dad joke. We’re not talking about Democrats and Republicans — or, since Larkin, who died in 1985, was British, about Margaret Thatcher or the Labour Party. But every aspect of human society, including frivolous social activities like drinking, involves power, fairness and the distribution of benefits, as well as often unspoken codes of behavior.

In this case, there seems to be a rule against self-service. This isn’t the kind of shindig with bottles lined up on the table or a keg and a stack of Solo cups in the corner. The guests need to be served, which means that the person throwing the party is in a position of power and obligation, like a politician or a priest.

And there is a whisper of religion at the end of the first stanza, in the attempt to think of “higher things” and in the curiously archaic phrase “mine host.” That word evokes the Eucharist, perhaps with canapés and cocktails standing in for bread and wine.

But Larkin, who once described himself as “an Anglican agnostic,” knows better than to expect miracles. In the secular world of social drinking, the parched citizen must choose between idealism and cynicism.

The idealists believe that an empty glass represents a need that “someone” — the host, the state — will surely fill.

The cynics suspect that the matter isn’t so simple. Whether you get drunk or stay dry might depend on whether you’re standing near the kitchen or in a remote corner of the living room. Or on how much the person circulating with the pitcher of margaritas likes you.

Larkin, one of the most beloved English poets of the postwar era, may also have been among the least likable. His poems often present a grumpy, intolerant, self-pitying persona at odds with the modern world.

Philip Larkin, circa 1958.

Rogers/Camera Press, via Redux

The posthumous publication of Larkin’s letters revealed him to be something uglier than a garden-variety curmudgeon. The private expressions of misogyny, antisemitism and xenophobia he shared with friends have dented his reputation in the years since his death.

If he hasn’t been fully canceled, it may be because his gift for self-cancellation makes such censure redundant. Larkin writes from the standpoint of someone who is out of touch, out of step and out of sorts, with himself and everyone around him. He’ll never be the life of the party, and you may wonder why anyone invited him in the first place.

Nonetheless, it’s good to see him there. For one thing, it’s nice to know that someone might be having a worse time than you are. He even has a theory about why some people have a better time than others; in fact, he’s an expert on the subject.

Misery loves company, and this miserable chap turns out to be just the companion you’re looking for, at least until you can find another drink.