First Poem that Impacted You

[hamartia]

The first poem I remember learning, aged 8 and under duress, was Robert Louis Stevenson's From A Railway Carriage, all of which I can still recite to this day. Not exactly a positive impact. I didn't really read any poetry for pleasure until my early-ish teens, and it was Philip Larkin's Poetry Of Departures that made the deepest impression on me. Not the most original of choices, probably, but hey. The second stanza in particular meant a lot, when I was at the age where home was the last place I wanted to be. In fact I'm fairly certain that this poem was the deciding factor in me actually clearing off away a few years later.

Poetry of Departures

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
It's specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me to stay
Sober and industrious.
But I'd go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo'c'sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren't so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.