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Poet
Philip Larkin
B. 1922 D. 1985
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is a poet whose very name conjures up a specific persona: the gloomy, death-obsessed and darkly humorous observer of human foibles and failings. The truth, both about…
Poem
‘This was Mr Bleaney’s room. He stayed The whole time he was at the Bodies, till They moved him.’ Flowered curtains, thin and frayed, Fall to within five inches…
Poem
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are…
Poem
The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin
…sun destroys The interest of what’s happening in the shade, And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls I took for porters larking with the mails, And went on…
Keystone
Poet
Anthony Thwaite
B. 1930 D. 2021
…editor of magazines such as The Listener and the New Statesman, and an executor of the estate of Philip Larkin. He was awarded an honorary D.Litt from the University of…
Poet
Alan Jenkins
B. 1955
…his mother with a subtlety and formal aptitude at times recalling Philip Larkin. As in Larkin, the high notes of Jenkins’s poems frequently come from unexpected moments of illumination, and…
Poet
Carol Rumens
B. 1944
…North Wales. She has a particular interest in the literary cultures of Central and Eastern Europe. One of her early inspirations was the work of Philip Larkin; she too emphasises…
Poet
Hannah Sullivan
B. 1979
…routines. Riffing on Philip Larkin’s ‘Days’ “What are days for?/Days are where we live” Sullivan highlights the absurdities of our day-bound lives: Days may be where we live, but mornings…
Poet
Clive James
B. 1939 D. 2019
…others that turn to the literary strand of his career, as ‘A Valediction for Philip Larkin’. This allows for creative misleadings; the Blade Runner reference of ‘Deckard Was a Replicant’…
Poet
Gavin Ewart
B. 1916 D. 1995
…strictures of work, age, time and memory fringe the exuberance and spontaneity of the poems’ lighter moments. It is surely these qualities that have attracted Ewart’s most prominent advocates: Philip…
Poet
Michael Hamburger
B. 1924 D. 2007
…Languages at Christ Church, Oxford where his contemporaries included Philip Larkin and John Heath-Stubbs. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War and army service. He then worked as…
Guided Tour
Poet
Connie Bensley
B. 1929
…is more like a desire to separate a piece of one’s experience and set it up on its own; … in the absence of this impulse, nothing stirs.” – Philip…
Poet
Colette Bryce
B. 1970
…write.’ – Philip Larkin ‘Poetry is about the grief; politics is about the grievance.’ – Robert Frost ‘Art is a guarantee of sanity’ – Louise Bourgeois ‘Silence, exile, cunning’ –…
Poet
Andrew Motion
B. 1952
…worked alongside Philip Larkin, another acknowledged mentor, whose official biographer he later became. He edited the Poetry Review, before becoming Poetry Editor at Chatto and Windus and, from 1996, Chairman…
Poet
Todd Swift
B. 1966
…which to communicate their particular sorrows, loves and triumphs. Todd Swift’s Favourite Poetry Sayings: “A style is much more likely to be formed by slipshod sampling.” – Philip Larkin “Only…
Poet
Elizabeth Jennings
B. 1926 D. 2001
…her life, a New Collected Poems appearing in 2002. Although initially linked to the group of poets including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin and Thom Gunn known as ‘The Movement’, Jennings’…