"The Beatles' First LP"

     I chose the poem "Annus Mirabilis" by Philip Larkin. The speaker opens the poem by stating when "sexual intercourse" really started to not become a topic of shame. It opened with a hook. The voice of the poem is not serious but sort of a whimsical and nostalgic review of when exactly the best years were. It is whimsical because when referring to the time in which he believed sex was explored, he referenced it as the time "Between the end of the Chatterly ban/And the Beatles' first LP." It isn't said outright but it is implied that the speaker also lost his virginity that year. The speaker cracks a small joke about how it "was rather late" for him when sex became a non shameful thing and reiterates it in the last stanza again with "Though just too late for me." 
     It is the most happiest in the year 1963 and we know that because he says it himself in the fourth and final stanza. The speaker states "So life was never better than/ In nineteen sixty-three." It is a very straight forward poem. I enjoyed it for the simplicity and the matter-of-fact voice the speaker had. It was also funny how the best year of his life was when he participated in "sexual intercourse" and how "everyone felt the same."
     There was a moment in the second stanza where the poem took a more serious note. The speaker said the was a shame since he was sixteen that "spread to everything" because it was a shame inducing topic. The shame could stem from being a virgin or the fact that sex was not talked about and was seen as taboo.  If it was because of him being a virgin, the line of shame highlights that there is this social stigma that boys can not be virgins and had to loose their virginities early or it's shameful. The writer put that little piece of truth subtly, but then right after in the next stanza shifted tones to a more positive one. He talked about how that year was the year it changed. The speaker compared life to being rich and a game you couldn't lose. That is how the speaker felt in nineteen sixty-three when he had sex. It was the dawn of the sixties and the Beatles' career was just starting.