Nick Cave, writer and musician, has done the Society the honour of accepting its invitation to join our distinguished and varied list of Honorary Vice Presidents.

In 2019, he was asked what his favourite poem was. Larkin’s ‘The Mower’, came the answer. There are deep and tragic reasons behind this choice which are partly explained in one of his Red Hand files (click here to read the whole text).

Larkin is a recurrent touchstone in Nick’s extensive literary references. And, in one of his most famous songs, ‘There she goes, my Beautiful World’, Larkin is named alongside Karl Marx, Gauguin and Dylan Thomas in an exquisitely crafted stanza as writers and artists beset by obstacles to creativity ( being ‘stuck in a library in Hull’ for Larkin).

Nick is a lover of poetry: ‘I have always read a lot of poetry. It’s part of my job as a songwriter. I try to read, at the very least, a half-hour of poetry a day, before I begin to do my own writing. It jimmies open the imagination, making the mind more receptive to metaphor and abstraction and serves as a bridge from the reasoned mind to a stranger state of alertness, in case that precious idea decides to drop by.’ Larkin is on his bookshelf, ready to help with his limbering up.

Nick accepted our invitation whilst warning that he ‘doesn’t consider himself an expert on Larkin’ and denies any ‘great knowledge or insight’. We beg to differ. Love of his poetry and constant engagement with it is a supreme qualification for an HVP and carries with it a particular, dazzling charge.

We are very grateful that Nick has agreed to lend his name to help our charitable cause of promoting knowledge and appreciation of Larkin’s work.