This week I read Philip Larkin's fifth collection of poems, 'The Whitsun Weddings' (1964).Usually when I say 'read' I mean read once, from cover to cover (apart from the books I abandon). And when I say 'read' a book of poems, usually I mean read each poem once (well- let's be honest, in an anthology, I might skim some the long ones from the 1800s) - maybe twice, maybe lingered over a few lines a few times.Since 'reading' The Whitsun Weddings on Monday night, I've re-read it every day this week. Each poem I must have read at least four times, some of them more. Some of them I've even looked up online while I've been at work, so I can read them again.This is the first time I've really felt I've come to grips with a book of poetry. I have read these poems for meaning, and I have read them for structure. I have read them for the themes that connect one poem to three others. I have read them aloud, to feel how they make my lips move. I may not have read them like an academic would, but I have read these poems in a more thorough, more meaningful way than I have ever read poetry before.I now find myself trying to analyse why. One factor is Larkin himself - while I've only read a few articles about him, and studiously avoided wikipediaing him this week, I do know the outlines of his life and in particular his relationships with women. This can't help but colour the way you read his work, and this adds to my habit of reading all poets autobiographically (for some reason, I find it easier to remember that books are 'made up', and tend to assume that if a poet writes about cows in a field or the moon in the sky or falling out of love, that these are lived rather than purely imaginative experiences). But the themes of the poems - of the narrator's combined curiosity and distaste for married life, of the urban landscape and its encroachment into the countryside, of the futility (and occasional beauty) of our silly short little lives, of the gaps between how we think things should be and how they actually are - feel like Larkin's thoughts and opinions.A second factor is the style of the poems. I found myself reading and rereading, trying to tease out and understand the rhythms and rhymes. The very first stanza in the collection grabbed my mind in this way - from 'Here': Swerving east, from rich industrial shadowsAnd traffic all night north; swerving through fieldsToo thin and thistled to be called meadows,And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shieldsWorkmen at dawn; swerving to solitudeOf skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants,And the widening river s slow presence,The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mudFeel that? 'Too thin and thistled', 'harsh-named halt', 'skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants'? Elsewhere I got a little shiver of pleasure when he rhymed 'decisions' and 'imprecisions' because 'imprecisions' is not a poemy word. I found the kitchen-sink nature of the poems appealing: no high-falutingness for Mr Larkin. But then an observation of an apple core falling short of the bin can become a brief meditation on how failure seeps through our lives, and trace back (perhaps?) to original sin. And he can write about grubby kids losing interest in a pet and only regaining it when they get to stage a funeral but he can also write this, which I find achingly beautiful: - 'Water'If I were called inTo construct a religionI should make use of water.Going to churchWould entail a fordingTo dry, different clothes;My liturgy would employImages of sousing,A furious devout drench,And I should raise in the eastA glass of waterWhere any-angled lightWould congregate endlessly. The two poems that will stay with me though, I think, are Larkin's very famous 'Arundel Tomb'Side by side, their faces blurred,The earl and countess lie in stone,Their proper habits vaguely shownAs jointed armour, stiffened pleat,And that faint hint of the absurd —The little dogs under their feet.Such plainness of the pre-baroqueHardly involves the eye, untilIt meets his left-hand gauntlet, stillClasped empty in the other; andOne sees, with a sharp tender shock,His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.They would not think to lie so long.Such faithfulness in effigyWas just a detail friends would see:A sculptor’s sweet commissioned graceThrown off in helping to prolongThe Latin names around the base.They would not guess how early inTheir supine stationary voyageThe air would change to soundless damage,Turn the old tenantry away;How soon succeeding eyes beginTo look, not read. Rigidly theyPersisted, linked, through lengths and breadthsOf time. Snow fell, undated. LightEach summer thronged the glass. A brightLitter of birdcalls strewed the sameBone-riddled ground. And up the pathsThe endless altered people came,Washing at their identity.Now, helpless in the hollow ofAn unarmorial age, a troughOf smoke in slow suspended skeinsAbove their scrap of history,Only an attitude remains:Time has transfigured them intoUntruth. The stone fidelityThey hardly meant has come to beTheir final blazon, and to proveOur almost-instinct almost true:What will survive of us is love.and this, 'Talking in Bed'Talking in bed ought to be easiest,Lying together there goes back so far,An emblem of two people being honest.Yet more and more time passes silently.Outside, the wind's incomplete unrestBuilds and disperses clouds in the sky,And dark towns heap up on the horizon.None of this cares for us. Nothing shows whyAt this unique distance from isolationIt becomes still more difficult to findWords at once true and kind,Or not untrue and not unkind.It's probably a bit facile to link these two poems, on the basis that the central imagery, of two people lying in bed together, symbolising their linkedness, is the same. But it feels to me that both poems exemplify what I think of as Larkin's harsh honesty, that sense of looking at the lives we try to lead in the darkest possible light. And yet, wrapped round that, the sheer beauty of the way he puts words together.
That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till aboutOne-twenty on the sunlit SaturdayDid my three-quarters-empty train pull out,All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense Of being in a hurry gone. We ranBehind the backs of houses, crossed a streetOf blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence The river’s level drifting breadth began,Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept For miles inland,A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept. Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and Canals with floatings of industrial froth; A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped And rose: and now and then a smell of grass Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth Until the next town, new and nondescript, Approached with acres of dismantled cars.At first, I didn’t notice what a noise The weddings madeEach station that we stopped at: 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 reading. Once we started, though, We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls In parodies of fashion, heels and veils, All posed irresolutely, watching us go,As if out on the end of an event Waving goodbyeTo something that survived it. Struck, I leant More promptly out next time, more curiously, And saw it all again in different terms: The fathers with broad belts under their suits And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat; An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms, The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes, The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres thatMarked off the girls unreally from the rest. Yes, from cafésAnd banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days Were coming to an end. All down the lineFresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;The last confetti and advice were thrown,And, as we moved, each face seemed to define Just what it saw departing: children frowned At something dull; fathers had never knownSuccess so huge and wholly farcical; The women sharedThe secret like a happy funeral;While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared At a religious wounding. Free at last,And loaded with the sum of all they saw,We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam. Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast Long shadows over major roads, and forSome fifty minutes, that in time would seemJust long enough to settle hats and say I nearly died,A dozen marriages got under way.They watched the landscape, sitting side by side—An Odeon went past, a cooling tower, And someone running up to bowl—and none Thought of the others they would never meet Or how their lives would all contain this hour. I thought of London spread out in the sun, Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:There we were aimed. And as we raced across Bright knots of railPast standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail Travelling coincidence; and what it held Stood ready to be loosed with all the power That being changed can give. We slowed again,And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelledA sense of falling, like an arrow-shower Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.
What do You think about The Whitsun Weddings (1964)?
This was one of the books I studied for A level. Initally I found it slightly depressing and a little too pessimistic...until we began reading Slyvia Plath.It took an essay entitled 'Making the mundane magnificent' for me to truly appreciate Larkin's wonderfully refreshing honesty. Great writers can change the way you see the world in a few hundred pages. Great poets can do this in a few hundred words. Larkin in a great poet. 'Essential Beauty' manages to transport me to the cosy winter warmth of the advertisment, regardless of the season in which I'm reading. The strive for perfection contrasting with the harshness of reality are wonderfully true to life.'Talking in Bed' expresses the common regret of complacency between two people who were once close, but now have nothing to say. Honesty, without excessive emotion is one of Larkin's greatest skills. For me, 'Home is so Sad' is his greatest poem. The personification of the house is such that the reader feels injustice at its solitude. Warm, accomodating and always trying to please, the house knows the lonliness of waiting for someone to come home.I love all of these poems - Larkin is a master of creating beauty from everyday occurances. If you find him too depressing, read some Plath and try again.
—Hanna Fawcett
This cost me a mere 50 cents!!!!And I know it will contain an absolute wealthof plain-speaking insight on the daily grind,done with irony, wit and empathy.Larkin' with Larkin!!!!POST-READ:Like ALL poetry books one knows one has never done with it, as the text and thought is usually so tightly packed with allusions, resonances and plain info as well as skills of style that it is a Continual Feast on so many levels.And so many returns (one just hopes one will have life and time!!) will hopefully be in store.I didn't find these poems as easily decipherable as I had thought I would.So have already read each poem a few times,silently , out loud trying to discover, translate etc.etc.No Regrets though!!!!
—Wayne
Esta tarde tenía música puesta mientras leía el poemario de Philip Larkin; pero la apagué. Era Dylan y sabía que al viejo amigo de Dylan Thomas le gustaría; pero apagué la voz. La música cesó y me sumergí de lleno en la lectura tal vez al subirme a ese tren casi vacío un soleado día de Pentecostés. Apagué la música porque quería encontrarme a solas con Larkin y sus reales paisajes, como no pueden ser de otra manera. Me encontré entre libros y libros, en la biblioteca donde los poemas brotaban, sintiendo su soledad, allí donde valía la pena destrozarme la vista. Me impregné de la libertad que provoca el anonimato. Pasar desapercibido mientras los poemas surgen frente a dos enamorados de piedra, cuyo amor no será eterno aunque así pasen 600 años, por más que lo intenten; o en un tren camino a Londres, foráneo entre los libros, extranjero entre los pasajeros. Veo que el espíritu Larkin contagia.
—Borja
