AustLit

In an accompanying biography, Edgar writes: 'In astronomy an event horizon is essentially the threshold of a black hole, beyond which electromagnetic radiation cannot escape and any physical body entering is torn apart. The poem makes an analogy between the event horizon and the moment of death, an expansion perhaps of Larkin's words in "The Old Fools": "At death you break up: the bits that were you/ Start speeding away from each other for ever" '.