Talking in bed

Love is an important factor in physical and emotional relationships- the good things that love brings along with bitter ones and disappointment. The sense of broken communication and isolation is well displayed through the structure and form of the poem. Rhyming ABA CAC DCD, and a final tercet rhyming EEE, what portray the absence of continuity and the broken-up nature of the couple's discourse.
As Larkin suggests, “It becomes more difficult to find / Words once true and kind”, it could be difficult for these two people to express verbally how they feel or it could be also possible that they spoke about the relationship, which has hurt them emotionally and they created the isolation, although words kind and true both relate with human language in positive manner. The double negative not + un “Or not untrue and not unkind”  leaves the reader ambiguous feeling of unfulfilled desire. Very similar situation is “At this unique distance from isolation”, suggesting that someone can be distanced from isolation and ironically very close at the same time.

Larkin’s poem “Talking in bed” enables us to relate to possible common experiences in our own lives and provoke us to think about both – the gap between expectations and reality – and irony of love in modern world. However, an irony, one of the dominant features in this poem, gives us the opportunity to create our own perception of love. I think Larkin believed that love is a positive thing, but we all know that reality makes nothing simple and often confront us with painful disappointment.