Larkin

[ben]

Does anybody else like Larkin or is he too depressing? Personally i think he's fantastic, just been looking over 'the whitsun weddings' and 'talking in bed' now. One of the poets i can really relate to (to an extent!).

[Miranda]

I'm not to keen on Larkin - though he comes from my home town. The fish dock smell he talks of in Whitsun weddings used to be dire when the wind was in the wrong direction and stunk out the whole town. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that it doesn't happen now..since our fishing industry went down the pan and the fish dock is no longer in use. The smell really used to come from a the fish meal and oil company which was situated on the dock. But leaving the railway station is exactly as Larkin describes it.

I like the line in Whitsun weddings where he says '...and for some fifty minutes, that in time would seem just long enough to settle hats and say ' I nearly died'... I think this is really funny and can imagine these fussy women sitting there saying that and the tone they would use to say it.

It's a very descriptive poem and brings to life Larkin's oberservations of people and places during the train journey to London... but though I can appreciate it on this level..and I don't find it 'poetic' somehow.

[Jay]

Could someone please tell me the whole name of the poet? First time I'm hearing about him, would like to have a look at his poems.

[Miranda]

His name is Phillip Larkin, Jay, but I don't know the name of any of his collections - perhaps someone else does?

[Jay]

Thanks Miranda :), guess now the search engine results should be more about the Larkin that might be THE Larkin lol.

[Koa]

Depressing??? Then I might like him!!! :D I know I read something by him at school, but I don't remember what it was and I guess it didn't strike me enough to make it memorable to me... Maybe it wasn't depressing enough... Could it be 'A dream of horses', or something like that? I'm sure it had to do with horses.

[emily655321]

As always, I'm with you Koa! :D Quite intriguing, indeed. The one way to get me to check something out is to say "it's depressing/creepy/weird/disturbing..." etc. :banana:

[atiguhya padma]

High Windows is one of his most famous colections. One of my favourite poems of his is this:

THIS BE THE VERSE

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.


Philip Larkin

[atiguhya padma]

Another favourite Larkin poem:

DAYS

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

[Isagel]

The one way to get me to check something out is to say "it's depressing/creepy/weird/disturbing..." etc. :banana:

I do not know if I would call it depressing or weird. At least not in the way those terms are used now, to describe "dark" poetry in the goth culture way. Larkin´s poetry is sad, sometimes. Perhaps sardonic is a good description of Larkin, but not all the time.

I like this one, especially in contrast with the knife-edge wit of "This be the verse" (Thanks AP, I have never read that one before)

Home is so Sad
Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

[Isagel]

I´ve read that Larkin was a great admirer of Thomas Hardy, and inspired by him - but I have not read much by Hardy myself. Does anyone know about him?

[emily655321]

I do not know if I would call it depressing or weird. At least not in the way those terms are used now, to describe "dark" poetry in the goth culture way. Larkin´s poetry is sad, sometimes. Perhaps sardonic is a good description of Larkin, but not all the time.

That's good, actually. :D "Goth culture" gets to me; it has no humor. (If one believes life is a cruel joke, but only writes about the cruelty, they aren't very good at writing about life, are they?)

As for Larkin, I love that "Days" poem. I think it's clever. But the others kind of annoyed me; yeah, his attitude is very ironic, but he impresses me as far more bitter than wry or ironic himself. It seems more like griping than bemusement. It's too angry -- it attacks without letting you in.

[Koa]

(If one believes life is a cruel joke, but only writes about the cruelty, they aren't very good at writing about life, are they?)



I don't get it... :confused:

I'm not impressed about this Larkin stuff...I don't know, it sort of lacks something to make my heart full of love for it... There's something plain in it. The one about days is quite witty yes, oh and also the other one when it say 'dont have any kids' lol... But it's all too domestic, and as much as I usually love concrete elements, this time I'm not in love... Maybe I need more readings...or just it's not my cup of tea (aww I love to say this 'cup of tea' sentence!)

[emily655321]

I don't get it... :confused:

What I meant to say was, people so often pay attention to the cruelty of life and forget to laugh at the joke.

[Koa]

And now I'm wondering why I asked... :confused: It was obvious. :D

[Natascha]

I was amazed by Larkin from the very first poem I read (It was The Mower). Being kind of melancholic myself too often;) I really adore such poems

[ben]

I agree that Larkin's poetry has a sense of humour and wit, but think there's much more too it.

If you have a look at a few poems, take 'Ambulances' for instance, they are concerned with the terrifying prospect of impending death and are quite chilling.

http://www.philiplarkin.com for anybody who's interested in some further reading / discussion.

I love these dancing bananas > :banana: :banana: :lol:

[Aunty-lion]

I don't know guys, I think Larkin totally lets you in. What about Sad Steps?

Philip Larkin - Sad Steps

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate -
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

To me this has a clear double meaning, one of which is taken from a straight reading, that is, a sad alcoholic pining for youth and clarity and the beauty of the moon OR a sad old alcoholic pining for sex/female company (aswell as youth, happiness and everything else he feels that he is not).

I mean, "I part thick curtains" and "lozenge of love" are pretty clear analogies on their own, but the moon itself has a nice Greco-mythological reference. If you take the moon to be Artemis (Greek goddess of the moon), who was the ultimate unnattainable and yet seriously desirable woman, you can begin to feel Larkin truly 'letting you in' to his heart and soul. It's kinda like reading Bukowski. Sure, he's a prick, but he's an open book, totally willing to share his lowest points with his reader.

It's like he's sharing this horrific feeling of impotence and emasculation in such an accessible way. I don't know about anyone else but I really dig it. He makes himself "laughable", and diminished. As a woman, I feel like writers like Larkin and Bukowski can give me some insight into that particular kind of (ususally) inaccessable man.

[rgdmalaysia]

High Windows is one of his most famous colections. One of my favourite poems of his is this:

THIS BE THE VERSE

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.


Philip Larkin

This is definitely one of the best of one of my favorite poets.

I don't find Larking depressing at all. I think he is a very straightforward writer of verse who represented the times he lived and the social changes that occurred in a very honest and eloquent way.

Kingsley Amis based his librarian character in "That Uncertain Feeling" on Larkin and also dedicated his first book "Lucky Jim" to him. I gather Larkin was a great friend of Amis's and helped him out monetarily before Amis made it big.