As Bad as a mile

The poem is about eating a apple and trying to throw it in the bin and missing it. In the poem Larkin shows  at the start of the poem, that they (the people who are throwing the apple core) are going to miss the bin. This is because Larkin says " Striking the basket, skidding across the floor". The poem is written backwards because at the end of the poem the apple is "unbitten" which shows that they have not eaten the apple yet even though at the start of the poem they have and thrown it in the bin/ This shows that at the start of the poem the apple is predestined to fail.

This little poem with simple aaa bbb rhyme scheme is about failure. The description in the poem is of the “shied core” of an apple, “striking the basket” and “skidding across the floor”. It’s an image we can all relate to, and one that might set one over the edge: after a bad day, it all builds into the simple failure of missing the bin with an apple core. The word “failure” is stressed by the enjambment, (a feature common in Larkin’s poetry) appearing at the beginning of the second stanza.

 The poem has religious connotations because in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve. That Fall was the pinnacle of failure, and as with every other image, irreversible. It also shows that every throw is doomed to fail. Though short, ‘As Bad as a Mile’ is an effective metaphor for the idea of irrevocable failure and includes the themes repetition, Spiritual, and failure.