Philip Larkin anyone?

[exKT17]

Aware this might not get a massive response...

...but I just caught the end of the PL exhibition at Hull University; it revealed an unremarkable life whose protagonist produced a very small canon of [marvellous] poetry.

What he did write spoke to the hearts of Brits like him, didn't it?

'On an Arundel Tomb' is probably a national favourite of his, with its warmth and sentiment.

But aside from that work I'd offer this up...

Come To Sunny Prestatyn

Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.

She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls

Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.

Any favourite Philip Larkin works from you?

 

[Gwylan]

Before I had kids, this sent a shudder through me ...

‘Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His son’s here now.’
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘And do
You keep in touch with—’ Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
‘Our version’ of ‘these incidents last night’?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In ’43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much ... How little ... Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of ... No, that’s not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They’re more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we’ve got

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son’s harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

 

[spence]

Pop Larkin ?

 

[Shuggie]

Not forgetting this gem ....

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

 

[LowKarate]

Thought we'd found a LB target for the January window.

Can he play?

 

[HantsSeagull]

Not forgetting this gem ....

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

this has to be the one! have given this poem to my kids as they reached the right age. and yes i ****ed them up.

 

[whitelion]

A gf of mine 20 years ago listed Larkin as one of her influences ostensibly from when she took O levels (ooer). Left me a little cold to be fair but then I wasn't into poets at the time. My classical influences were Chaucer Shakespeare etc.

 

[mune ni kamome]

Pretentious snobbish rubbish. Steve Larkins however, that's what I call entertainment

 

[Shuggie]

Pretentious snobbish rubbish. Steve Larkins however, that's what I call entertainment

Says the man with Japanese user name (Seagull to the core?) ... big lolz

 

[Goldstone1976]

Another creative talent whose personal life and views were challenging. His letters reveal him to be a racist and misogynistic (his diaries - split into "normal" and "sexual" - were destroyed on his death). At one point he had sexual relationships with three women on the go simultaneously, and previously had had a relationship with the wife of one of his colleagues (cf John Terry).

That said, I admire and like his poetry.

 

[jakarta]

At one point he had sexual relationships with three women on the go simultaneously, and previously had had a relationship with the wife of one of his colleagues (cf John Terry)./QUOTE]

How did he get the time to write any poetry?

 

[Buzzer]

Kingsley Amis's autobiography is very revealing of their time together at Oxford. Taught by both CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein (both of which Larkin and Amis held pretty poor opinions) their undergraduate days were very odd. Even then, Larkin's sexual peccadillos were well known. He used to ********** frequently from underneath a huge coat whilst in lectures. Amis found this hilarious.

It always struck me as odd that Larkin's poetry is very accessible, funny, earthy when he was such a dreadful snob. Likewise, working at Hull Uni rather than somewhere more distinguished.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Church going, was often quoted by Christopher Hitchens in his critiques and debates. Amazing.

Church Going by Philip Larkin

Once i am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting seats and stone
and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut
For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense musty unignorable silence
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off
My cylce-clips in awkward revrence

Move forward run my hand around the font.
From where i stand the roof looks almost new--
Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern I peruse a few
hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce
Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
And always end much at a loss like this
Wondering what to look for; wondering too
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show
Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or after dark will dubious women come
To make their children touvh a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games in riddles seemingly at random;
But superstition like belief must die
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass weedy pavement brambles butress sky.

A shape less recognisable each week
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last the very last to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber randy for antique
Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff
Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative

Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation--marriage and birth
And death and thoughts of these--for which was built
This special shell? For though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet
Are recognisd and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious
And gravitating with it to this ground
Which he once heard was proper to grow wise in
If only that so many dead lie round.

 

[GJN1]

'Toads' is right up there...

 

[MattBackHome]

Another creative talent whose personal life and views were challenging. His letters reveal him to be a racist and misogynistic (his diaries - split into "normal" and "sexual" - were destroyed on his death). At one point he had sexual relationships with three women on the go simultaneously, and previously had had a relationship with the wife of one of his colleagues (cf John Terry).

That said, I admire and like his poetry.

Indeed. I’m a big fan of his work, and recognise that it's a big euphemism to say that was an odd fellow.

What strikes me in his poems overall is that these descriptions of the ‘mundane’ (i.e. not much actually happens) are stuffed with this undercurrent of some intangible thing like disdain or rage or irony or pisstaking. The gateway poem into Larkin is definitely ‘This Be The Verse’ which is wonderful, but I’d say my favourite is probably ‘Aubade’ which seems to be one of his most straight-faced, and is just rammed full of spectacular turns of phrase:

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

 

[Goldstone1976]

What strikes me in his poems overall is that these descriptions of the ‘mundane’ (i.e. not much actually happens) are stuffed with this undercurrent of some intangible thing like disdain or rage or irony or pisstaking.

I think it was Motion's biography that first posited that rage underlay Larkin's work. Like you, though, I think it's something far more complex and ambiguous than just one emotion. "Intangible" just about sums it up; this ambiguity only adds to the quatilty of his poems for me.

 

[Big_Unit]

Indeed. I’m a big fan of his work, and recognise that it's a big euphemism to say that was an odd fellow.

What strikes me in his poems overall is that these descriptions of the ‘mundane’ (i.e. not much actually happens) are stuffed with this undercurrent of some intangible thing like disdain or rage or irony or pisstaking. The gateway poem into Larkin is definitely ‘This Be The Verse’ which is wonderful, but I’d say my favourite is probably ‘Aubade’ which seems to be one of his most straight-faced, and is just rammed full of spectacular turns of phrase:

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

I was about to post this. It's my favourite poem of all time.

Yes, I am a gloomy ****.

 

[Gwylan]

Another creative talent whose personal life and views were challenging. His letters reveal him to be a racist and misogynistic (his diaries - split into "normal" and "sexual" - were destroyed on his death). At one point he had sexual relationships with three women on the go simultaneously, and previously had had a relationship with the wife of one of his colleagues (cf John Terry).

Yes, I'm not quite sure why he thought sexual intercourse only started in 1963 or that it was too late for him - he seems to have been shag happy most of his life.

He's yet another example of a poet who is a complete bell-end in real life but produces such excellent work (see Shelley, Byron, Brecht, Rimbaud, Thomas, Hughes etc)

 

[ferring seagull]

Larkin About ?

 

[crasher]

As @boldseagull said - Church Going is an extraordinary poem and maybe the peak for Larkin in my view.

But I've always been haunted by the phrase 'Once you have walked the length of your mind' from this one. Both beautiful and despairing.


Continuing To Live by Philip Larkin

Continuing to live -- that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries --
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise --
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,

On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.