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WELCOME TOTHE PHILIP LARKIN SOCIETY
Since The Philip Larkin Society was founded in 1995, ten years after the poetâs death, it has become a national and international focus for lovers of his writings.
The Society, a registered charity, provides a forum for the discussion of all aspects of Larkin’s work: as poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian. Our lively, illustrated Journal, About Larkin, mingles reviews and commentaries on the Societyâs activities with articles of a more substantial literary nature. Our podcast Tiny In All That Air has featured some of the worldâs leading scholars on Larkin and his contemporaries, such as Professor James Booth and Professor Zachary Leader, but also hosts Larkin chat with writers and artists, PLS committee members, honorary vice presidents and, of course, the members themselves. We are always looking for new and creative ways to promote knowledge and understanding of Philip Larkin and to get as many people as possible involved from Hull to all around the world.
WHAT ARE OUR AIMS?
- To promote the public knowledge and appreciation of the works of Philip Larkin (1922-1985) and his literary contemporaries
- To bring together all those who admire Larkinâs work as poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian
- To bring about publications on all things Larkinesque
WHAT DO WE DO?
- Online and in person events such as conferences, readings, and talks about all aspects of Larkinâs life
- Online members social events
- About Larkin Journal, published twice a year in April and October
- A regular e-newsletter
- A member of the Alliance of Literary Societies
- Twitter, YouTube and Instagram channels
RECENT NEWS
THE PLS PUB QUIZ
This yearâs annual commemoration of the anniversary of Larkinâs death was a little different. After last yearâs multi-centred ceremonial occasion which featured the unveiling of a Larkin bench in Spring
Forthcoming Events
The Philip Larkin Society AGM and Annual Distinguished Guest Lecture  2024 will be held in Oxford on Saturday 8th June. More details to follow.
POEM REVIEW
Neurotics
September 2006 Nomination: Neurotics [MarchâApril 1949. From Collected Poems (1988)] What surprises me most about âNeuroticsâ is that fact that its author doesnât seem to have valued it very highly, since the poem was only published after Larkinâs death (and nearly forty years after it was written) in the superior, original version of the Collected Poems. For me it was one of the most impressive additions to the Larkin canon that came to us when that volume appeared and reading the poem today Iâm still mystified as to why, given that it was completed in 1949, he deemed it of insufficient quality to find a place in The Less Deceived. To me it seems as strong as (or even stronger than) many of the poems that did make the grade. The title is a little problematic perhaps, as the now defunct psychiatric term âneuroticâ was surely inappropriate, even in 1949, when applied to the far more
Sunny Prestatyn
April 2005 Nomination: Sunny Prestatyn [October 1962? From The Whitsun Weddings] Walking through the suburbs of the city and finding oneself strangely drawn to the graffiti on walls, play-parks and posters, one couldnât help but be reminded of âSunny Prestatynâ. A poem that at once shows the comic yet callous defacement of advertisement posters whilst carefully crafting the unknown beauty which lies within everything (but is somehow destroyed and squandered by everyday existence), it is a remarkably accomplished piece, even from a poet as capable as Larkin. As with much of Larkinâs poetry the metre and rhyme scheme is tightly controlled, in such a way that allows the poem to flow from images of the âexpand[ing]â and âspread[ing]â scene which swells from the laughing girlâs thighs and breasts, into the sudden âscor[ing]â and âscrawlsâ of the sabotaging, anonymous youngsters. Despite its versatility the poem never sounds disjointed, and manages to retain a completeness
The Explosion
May 2010 Nomination: The Explosion [5 January 1970. From High Windows] Speeding up to my sixth decade, months away now, alas not years, I find Larkinâs observations on his transit through life are even more poignant (âThe Winter Palaceâ, âDaysâ, âI have started to sayâ, âAubadeâ). I also married on 24th May 1969 (a âWhitsun Weddingâ) my bride 18 and I at 17, we celebrated our 40th anniversary in May 2009. However, being the Son and Grandson of a Yorkshire miner, the one Larkin poem that provokes clear recall and all the emotions that that act evokes is âThe Explosionâ (1970). The childhood that helped build this man was spent in the shadows of those slagheaps, sharing the polluted air, muck, laughter and tragedy of a close knit mining community. Graham Ibbeson
Coming
Nomination: Coming [25 February 1950. From XX Poems and The Less Deceived] Larkin is not in any sense a nature poet yet many of his poems such as âThe Treesâ and âFirst Sightâ celebrate the change of the seasons and, in particular, his excitement at the approach of Spring. âComingâ (1950) is one of these. The contrast here is between the solid brick houses hedged in by laurel bushes and the delicacy of the birdsong and changed light that herald the Spring. I like the way past, present and future are contained in this lyric: the laurel is the modern emblem of the suburban garden yet in Greek mythology it communicated the spirit of prophesy and poetry. The extended simile that closes the poem gives us an image of security and hope that we can all relate to, taking us back to childhood when the moods of our parents were our seasons and all our
Broadcast
July 2002 Nomination: Broadcast [6 November 1961. From The Whitsun Weddings] This poem was first published in The Listener in January 1962. On my copy Philip wrote: âTo Maeve who wd. sooner listen to music than listen to meâ and drew this sketch of himself enveloped in gloom beside his wireless, and of me, rapt in the more formal atmosphere of the concert hall. One Sunday afternoon the previous November, the BBC Simphony Orchestra gave a concert in the City Hall, Hull which was simultaneously broadcast on the radio. Knowing I was at the live performance, Philip listened to it at home. The following day he handed me a typescript of the poem, initially called âBroadcast Concertâ, but later shortened to âBroadcastâ. Elated and deeply moved, I was amused by the description of my shoes which had been the object of a shared, private joke that autumn. Elegant, with stiletto heels and pointed toes, popularly
To the Sea
April 2003 Nomination: To the Sea [October 1969. From High Windows] As a child our family holidays were always taken somewhere by the seaside where we could spend all day on the beach totally absorbed in whatever we were doing. It always seemed to me as though we had somehow crossed over into another place where time was suspended. Even now as an adult and parent I still love to be at the seaside. There is still that feeling of being in that other place, especially towards the end of the afternoon as the light changes and people start to leave. This poem for me captures the whole atmosphere of the beach, the goings on, the litter. You can see it, hear it, you are there. The way things gradually change as time moves on, the steamer previously stuck in the afternoon is gone, the sunlight turning milky like breathed-on glass, and finally
As Bad As a Mile
September 2014 Nomination: As Bad As a Mile [9 February 1960. From The Whitsun Weddings] In the aftermath of the 2014 World Cup, sports journalist Barney Ronay in his Monday Guardian column cited the first four lines of this poem as a pretty fair summary of the England teamâs performance over the years: not so much misfortune (âit went over the line, ref!â) as endemic incapacity to play well. We can have another shy in four yearsâ time but weâll end up skidding across the floor. Delighted, as always, to see Larkin once again become part of normal discourse, I rushed back to remind myself of the rest of the poem, a tiny perfection shaped for contemplation, tempting repeated consumption and all that despite the whimsy of a title which promises so little. For the last month, Iâve revisited the poem daily half-hoping that Iâve found the equivalent of Timothy Clarkâs experiment with Poussinâs Landscape with
Mother, Summer, I
May 2003 Nomination: Mother, Summer, I [August 1953. From Collected Poems(1988)] For anyone who enjoys reciting Larkin, as I do, this is a delightful little poem whose simple construction and language make it easy for listeners to absorb at first hearing. It seems a particularly personal poem, both tender and sad, in which the closeness of the bond between mother and son is evoked more clearly than anywhere else in Larkinâs work. His motherâs foibles, so often exasperating to Larkin, are here treated with affectionate sympathy, as he recognises the similarity of their distrust of apparent perfection. For all the poemâs simplicity, there is richness, too. Take the fine ambiguity of that surprising word âconfrontâ. Does Larkin see happiness, or its emblems, as an adversary â a threat to his habitual, treasured sense of disappointment? Or is he regretfully admitting his inability to face up to the possibility of being genuinely happy? As
Days
July 2011 Nomination: Days [3 August 1953. From The Whitsun Weddings] As Director of the Philip Larkin Centre I am always pleased to discover new writing that spins out from an appreciation of a Larkin poem, some call and response from across the decades. I was struck to find David Nichollsâ moving and best-selling novel One Day has the entire âDaysâ as its epigraph. For me it is a wilfully cheerful poem. It sings of a simple take on life we all can share, and then takes a rueful look at the professionals, our lawyers and doctors sweeping on to the scene in their long coats to add complexity and so confuse us. The âAhâ is such a touching note, a sigh from a poet looking out from that simplicity of the first verse and smiling as he gives us an image of professionals in the fields. The poem is raised above the sentimental, the
An April Sunday brings the snow
April 2002 Nomination: An April Sunday brings the snow [4 April 1948] This short elegy is one of Larkinâs most directly moving poems. It is also his first attempt to write in what was to become his characteristic voice: realistic, melancholic, demotic. Hardy had by now firmly replaced Yeats in Larkinâs affections, and there are strong echoes here of the Hardy of 1912-13. Yet the âyouâ of the poem is no dead spouse â itâs Larkinâs father â and however much the piece may strike us now as a breakthrough, it signalled twelve months in which its author could write no more verse. Such is the pressure of feeling here, in fact, that Larkin commits an extremely rare metrical lapse, adding an extra foot to line three. I think Iâm most impressed by the simplicity of this poem, the way it achieves so much in so few lines. Iâm also deeply in
The Trees
September 2010 Nomination: The Trees [2 June 1967. From High Windows] I have chosen âThe Treesâ, which I first published in the New Statesman when I was literary editor, on 17 May 1968. I also like the fact that it was one of the first poems to be used in the London âPoems on the Undergroundâ scheme, and a framed version of that early manifestation is in our dining room here in Norfolk. Itâs one of the most magically inevitable of Philipâs poems, and at the same time one of the most surprising. When heâd finished it, he asked Monica: âDo people still write poems like this?â Anthony Thwaite
Guitar Piece II
November 2002 Nomination: Guitar Piece II [18 September 1946. From Collected Poems (1988)] The second of Larkinâs âTwo Guitar Piecesâ was completed on 18 September 1946, the month in which the young poet, just turned 24, moved from Wellington to become Assistant Librarian at Leicester University College. Its unrhymed, loosely scanned lines of four or five stresses aim at a casual âmodernâ tone. The early Auden is echoed in the âEuropeanâ flavour of âplatzâ, and in the poemâs portentous post-war landscape (âa man is walking along / A path between the wreckageâ); while T. S. Eliotâs âPrufrockâ and âWastelandâ lie behind the final image of the guitar âSpreading me over the evening like a cloud, / Drifting, darkening: unable to bring rain.â Even at this early stage, however, Larkin has his own distinctive voice and images: the faintly lugubrious play on the proverbial âpoor handâ we are dealt by Life for instance, and the
The Trees
May 2005 Nomination: The Trees [2 June 1967. From High Windows] I would like to nominate âThe Treesâ for its mastery of versification and the nicely judged lingusitic modulation â from the mainly monosyyllabic simplicity of the first two quatrains to the splendid richness of the final stanza â with that inspired repetition of âafreshâ. Vernon Scannell
Street Lamp
November 2011 Nomination: Street Lamps [September 1939. From Collected Poems (1988)] With so many superb mature works available, why have I chosen a poem written when Larkin was a sixth-former? Because I teach sixth-formers, and although Larkin isnât on any of our current syllabuses (sorry, weâre to call them âspecificationsâ these days), I have a responsibility to my students to enable them to discover the joy of the work of their own cityâs bard. Reading from early work onwards also gives us a way into Auden, Yeats and, above all, Hardy, as we follow the development of this extraordinary and â in his early days â prolific poet. Reading work which was written when Larkin was the same age as they are gives them a real wake-up call: this early stuff is crafted. It is not an unmediated outpouring of (perfectly valid) teenage angst, but it is demonstrably worked on. Lineation, rhyme, rhythm and
Home is so Sad
June 2003 Nomination: Home is so Sad [31 December 1958. From The Whitsun Weddings] I nominated this poem as it shows how Larkin saw existence as being empty. How the concept of being was to please others, it tries to draw back the occupants by remaining unchanged. Larkin shows the fears people have about change (something he to was sceptical about) especially modernisation. He makes the poem personal, as if we are already aware of what is contained in the house â the last line especially. â That Vaseâ. The poem illustrates how Larkin could often personify the Home into the grief of non-existence. Something we can all relate to. James Blythe
High Windows
April 2001 Nomination: High Windows [12 February 1967. From High Windows] Favourite poems: very difficult. I got 10 on a first run through the Collected Poem. My final 3 are humdrum and obvious except the last [âHigh Windowsâ]. âHigh Windowsâ ⊠seems to me to sound new depths. Anecdotes: My wife Mary saw him [Larkin] at the bus stop waiting for a bus into town. Said he was going to Thornton Varleyâs [a Hull city centre department store] for bread. Surprised when he was told he could get it quite near where he lived. Asked us to supper when it was announced that we were going to the States for a year. If we got near New York would I go to the shop of someone called, I think, Sam Goody, the best seller of jazz records on earth. Gave me a list. On a trip to New York I left the family looking
The Building
February 2006 Nomination: The Building [9 February 1972. From High Windows] Looking down the list of previously chosen âPoems of the Monthâ it was no surprise to find âThe Buildingâ wasnât there. Of all Larkinâs major poems it seems to get mentioned the least (someone will immediately notify me of the six articles, three books and one international conference that have been devoted exclusively to âThe Buildingâ in the last month). Nevertheless, there is a natural reluctance to enthuse about it; I canât see it being anthologised in âThe Nationâs Favourite Poemsâ, can you? Iâm reminded of Larkinâs ironic exclamation: âThe Oxford Book of Death! How marvellous!â in a review of the same. A poem about dying in hospital is always going to have its work cut out competing for our affections with, say, âAn Arundel Tombâ, that monument to âuntruthâ. Even amongst Larkin fans I detect a certain squeamishness. But then, what
Days
October 2010 Nomination: Days [3 August 1953. From The Whitsun Weddings] I first read Larkin poems at secondary school in the early 1980s in an anthology called This Day and Age. We studied âBorn Yesterdayâ, âToadsâ, âAt Grassâ and âWiresâ and in all honesty they werenât my favourites of the poems that we read at that stage (I preferred the Sassoon, Frost and Auden in the same book). It was only later (and possibly also when I was starting to write poems myself) that I realised that my heart belonged to Larkinâs work far more than to any other poetâs. I liked his secret recipe (some misery, some cynicism, some humour, some harshness, some softness â who knows the exact mix of ingredientsâŠ) and I liked his unique tone and choice of words. Before too long (and as I wrote more and more myself) he became my out and out favourite poet (living or
Cut Grass
June 2005 Nomination: Cut Grass [3 June 1971. From High Windows] This is sometimes thought as in some ways a companion piece to âThe Treesâ, Poem of the Month for May 2005 and another tying Larkin elegiacally to an England somewhere in the middle of the last century. But âThe Treesâ is a discussion and a reflection on mortality, the possibility for change, the impermananence of life, and the possibility of renewal, another use of the image of a tree as a life force (as in âLove Songs in Ageâ). A bundle of tightly compressed metaphors. âCut Grassâ, on the other hand is almost pure imagery. The poet is completely invisible. There is no sense of an âIâ â there is a sense of an eye â the image falling as instant, like the image on a camera (with which Larkin was expert) preserving one moment, then and in England, now and in
The Explosion
January 2013 Nomination: The Explosion [5 January 1970. From High Windows (1970)] Larkin is one of the masters of the English Language and Iâm an unqualified reader incapable of judging him on technique and style. I only know I like very much the way he writes. As to what he writes, I enjoy his sceptical, sidelong, look at life; I enjoy how the sort of jagged acidity of self expression at times seems bordering on self distaste; he seems to find a perverse delight in this self distaste. But I love the lyrical terseness that sometimes comes out of him almost as though against his will, as it does in âThe Treesâ, âCut Grassâ (which I particularly love), or âAt Grassâ. It is as though his delight at what he sees overcomes any of his more usual tendencies to make a side-swipe. In âThe Explosionâ, as far as I know, Larkin is detached from