For Sidney Bechet

'For Sidney Bechet' by Larkin is about his love for the music made by Sidney Bechet. In this poem he shares the love and admiration that he has for this musician. Larkin does not seem to show as much admiration for anyone else in his life, yet he feels very passionately about jazz music. Therefore, the key themes that I believe can be seen in this poem are music and love.
I feel that this poem by Larkin has a more reflective and calmer tone to it compared with other works by Larkin which suggests even furthur the passion that Larkin feels towards jazz music.
One of the things that I found interesting about this poem was the rhyme scheme that Larkin chose to use. It is an unusual rhyme scheme which is unexpected as at first you would expect a song based on jazz music to have a regular rhyme and beat to it. There are some full rhymes used in this poem such as "shakes" and "wakes" however there are also some half-rhymes used such as "should" and "understood". This also links in with the difference in the lengths of stanzas.
I believe that this poem links in with Dannie Abse's poem 'Elegy for Dylan Thomas' as both poets write about someone that they have admiration for and look up to. However, Dannie Abse also has love in other aspects of his life which is different from Phillip Larkin.
The romance can be seen in this poem through "balconies, flower-baskets and quadrilles". This shows love and romance as a quadrille is dance that couples do. Love can also be seen in "everyone making love and going shares". This line is quite casual which suggests that romance can come easy to some couples if they are completely in love.