Larkin, Philip

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Larkin on poetry and jazz
Larkin's miscellanies

Required Writing
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Collected Poems
Further Requirements: Interviews, Broadcasts, Statements and Book Reviews, 1952-85 (Poets on Poetry)
Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940-1985
Larkin's Jazz: Essays and Reviews, 1940-84 (Bayou)
A Girl in Winter

ASIN: 0571131204

Book Description

The reappearance of Philip Larkin's Required Writing will be welcomed by the late poet's many readers and admirers. The book's first two parts, "Recollections" and "Interviews," provide autobiographical glimpses of the very private Larkin's childhood, his youth at Oxford, the genesis of his forty-year career as a librarian, and the influences that initially steered his poetry.

The second half of the book reflects Larkin's literary standards and opinions in often witty and surprising, always beautifully wrought, essays and reviews. His subjects range from Emily Dickinson (were her first lines her best?) to the contemporary mystery novel. Required Writing concludes with a selection of pieces on jazz music.

"Larkin is a punctilious, honest critic. He prefers good clear writing to pretentious eyewash; he prefers tunes to discordant wailing; and he prefers home to abroad. Unlike the majority of critics, he is clear-sighted enough to say so." --A. N. Wilson, Sunday Telegraph

"I read the collection with growing excitement, agreement and admiration. It is the best contemporary account of the writer's true aims I have encountered." --John Mortimer, Sunday Times (London)

"Subtle, supple, craftily at ease, Required Writing is on a par with Larkin's poetry--which is just about as high as praise can go." --Clive James, Observer

Philip Larkin was the author of poetry collections, including High Windows, The Whitsun Weddings, and The Less Deceived; a book of essays entitled All What Jazz: A Record Diary; and two novels, Jill, and A Girl in Winter, published early in his career. Required Reading was originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Customer Reviews:

Larkin on poetry and jazz.......2001-09-05

Anyone familar with Larkin's poetry will want to read this book of essays on literature and jazz. In it he demonstrates the same humor, common-sense, and intelligence that can be found in his poetry. His strong preference is for poets who are not deliberately obscure or difficult. Indeed, at times Larkin can sound almost anti-intellectual. This is misleading; he is very serious about his art. In this collection, he shows great insight into the works of other 20th Century British poets. His essays on jazz are more melancholy; for Larkin, jazz started going downhill with Bop. Nevertheless, his comments on jazz are insightful.

Larkin's miscellanies.......1999-08-27

Readers who liked Larkin's poetry will find the same humorous and pessimistic point of view to like in Larkin the book reviewer and jazz critic.

This book gathers together Larkin's miscellanies. It consists of two interviews with Larkin, his introductions to his novels and books of poetry, talks about poetry, reviews of poetry anthologies, biographies and novels plus some material about jazz that is also included in his book "All What Jazz." Most of the writing is about literature and music with the exception of a review of a book on the language of children.

The poets discussed are almost all British poets of the late-19th and 20th century such as A.E. Housman, Stevie Smith, Wilfred Owen, John Betjeman, Thomas Hardy and W.H. Auden (the last two being Larkin's favorites). Throughout these writings, Larkin is seen fighting a battle against modernism. For him, the arts in the 20th century went astray with "(Ezra) Pound, Picasso and (Charlie) Parker." He prefers poems that "use language in the way we all use it" and music that is "an affair of nice noises rather than nasty ones." This is a reasonable asethetic principle but he restates enough times in the book to become a little repetitious.

There is still enough good stuff to make the book worthwhile. There's some funny patches such as Larkin's description of the "fleshy, inarticulate" and aging jazz fans "whose first coronary is coming like Christmas." As a critic and a writer, Larkin is all for providing pleasure, instead of material for earnest study. Many readers will be refreshed by this approach to literature.

The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse
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Of Limited, but Considerable, Interest

Larkin's Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry

The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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A Girl in Winter

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American Poetry : The Twentieth Century, Volume 1 : Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker

ASIN: 0198121377

Book Description

Philip Larkin's Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse provoked controversy and dispute on first publication in 1973. Warmly welcomed by fellow poets John Betjeman and W.H. Auden, it was also considered a quirky and idiosyncratic collection by some critics. Today it is recognized as a fine and wide-ranging selection of modern verse, valuable not least because it reflects the tastes of one of the best, and best-loved, English poets of the twentieth century. As the successor to W.B. Yeats's Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935, this anthology made a radical re-assessment of the century's achievement in poetry; it represented verse that was `lighter in tone, more understated, more casual, more conversational, more colloquial, in a way more democratic and more domestic than it was for Yeats'. It also introduced many little-known poets whose names have not entered the canon, and whose contributions add colour and depth to the anthology. As Philip Larkin writes in his Preface, in choosing poems rather than individuals he has brought together `poems that will give pleasure to their readers both separately and as a collection'. For this latest reissue, the poet's biographer Andrew Motion has written a new Foreword in which he considers the nature of Larkin as editor.

Customer Reviews:

Of Limited, but Considerable, Interest.......2004-08-27

This is a bad anthology to introduce someone to 20.c. poetry; the selections of many important poets are both too idiosyncratic and too meagre. Besides, the first half of the book includes lots of vaguely interesting doggerel of questionable poetic value.

On the other hand, there are several things to be said for it. The first is that Larkin put in a lot of good stuff that is not usually anthologised. Among the inspired selections are Auden's "No Change of Place", "Brussels in Winter" and "Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno"; Kipling's "McAndrew's Hymn"; Edward Thomas's "Team's Head-Brass"; Empson's "Success" and the whole Betjeman section. But most of his selections from particular authors are sensible and predictable. He is very conservative with Eliot and Yeats. Yeats also gets too little space -- 20 pp. as opposed to 24 for Auden and 30 for Eliot. It's nice to see that Larkin has picked some of his own stuff; it's more or less what you'd expect him to have picked, though. Some of his choices are weird -- Peter Porter's "Annotations on Auschwitz" is represented by its clever but not quite self-contained last quatrain -- and of course most of the (many) poems chosen from the early 1900s are not very good.

This anthology also functions as a record of Larkin's taste and sense of the poetic tradition of his time, and yields a few parallels with his own poetic practice. There's also an interesting find: J.B.S. Haldane's poem titled "Cancer's a funny thing", for instance, which is the source of the line in Auden's "Miss Gee".

Another thing to note about this anthology is that the 1960s were less disconnected from the pre-war era than our generation is, and probably more capable of understanding its verse and appreciating it. Most of the writers of that period -- Davies, Gibson, Masefield, Young -- are now hardly read except in anthologies like this, and it's good and perhaps important that they should be read.

Larkin's Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry.......2002-01-09

Readers of Larkin's excellent letters will have come across frequent complaints about his 'Oxford Book of Two Cent Verse' as he dismissivly calls it. Although he found the task of producing it onerous, it's very good -- if one accepts it for what it is.

Anthologies, having limited space, make a choice between representing the best writers at length, or representing a larger number of writers more briefly. Larkin chooses the latter: the book includes 584 poems by about 200 poets, which this means that many poets (outside the "greats" -- Hardy, Yeats and Eliot -- who are all fully represented) are represented by as little as two poems.

But this approach has virtues. Larkin includes poems by many poets who aren't considered "major writers"; and who, while often well-known in their lives, are not likely to be known to readers now. This is interesting, of course, as it reminds a reader that poets are not only influenced by the best writers, but also by the second best. There is also, perhaps, an attempt here to sketch a certain tradition of English twentieth century writing: one that, although it includes Eliot and Basil Bunting, is in the main, colloquial, unheroic and keen to document domestic events and emotions in poetry that is, if not strictly formal, at least nodding at formal arrangement.

Lovers of Larkin, or of the sort of poetry outlined above, may well find themselves overjoyed by this anthology. Readers whose tastes are for the outlandish, excessive and outragous may be impatient. Personally I think that poetry is at its healthiest when these two groups are not entirely separated: when they both can agree on certain writers to admire; and when both of them at least are aware of and respect the other's tastes.

Perhaps people who find themselves entirely in accord with this anthology should also look at Rosenthal's 'Poetry in English' -- a dull name but a fantastic anthology -- for an alternative view of Twentieth Century poetry. (And perhaps, for fuller coverage of the post-1960s poets, Lucie-Smith's 'British Poetry Since 1945'; and for a look at where this alternative English tradition can lead to, Crozier and Longville's 'A Various Art' or Sinclair's 'Conductors of Chaos'.) And for the opposite group: this anthology, with the reminder that Pound, the key figure in the Modernist movement, thought very highly of the key poetic figure in Larkin's English tradition, Thomas Hardy.

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This be the verse

Lame Larkin

Horrible

Philip Larkin: Collected Poems

Songs of a dyspeptic old grouch

Collected Poems
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0374529205

Book Description

One of the best-known and best-loved poets of the English-speaking world, Philip Larkin had only a small number of poems published during his lifetime. Collected Poems brings together not only all his books--The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows--but also his uncollected poems from 1940 to 1984.

This new edition reflects Larkin's own ordering for his poems and is the first collection to present the body of his work with the organization he preferred. Preserving everything he published in his lifetime, the new Collected Poems is an indispensable contribution to the legacy of an icon of twentieth-century poetry.

Customer Reviews:

This be the verse.......2007-03-31

There are two different types of Larkin poem. The first type, mostly written before 1955, are influenced by Yeats and Auden and are mediocre. The second, written when he found his voice, are amongst the most wonderful works of English literature ever written.
So what was his voice? Basically that of twentieth century man - atheistic, obsessed with sex, regretting the loss of faith and the old certainties. He takes these subjects and turns them into glorious poems. But here's the really incredible thing: he uses ordinary, uncomplicated language. No tricks, no arcane allusions, just plain English.
It can't be denied that the voice is bleak, and it is too uncompromising for some. However, those who like looking into the heart of darkness will find poems which they will remember for the rest of their lives.

Lame Larkin.......2006-10-09

I am one of a growing number that find Larkin lame and flaccid. You read, you understand, you move on. There is little to struggle over, nothing one wishes to reread. Simple poems of a lost England.

Horrible.......2006-06-25

This poetry has no redemption or beauty. It is dry, sarcastic, dismal, and plain out unhealthy to the mind. It's not worth it. Read poetry that moves you to understanding, not this.

Philip Larkin: Collected Poems.......2006-01-16

I am not a poetry lover, by past personal history. When I told my wife of hearing a Larkin poem read and liking it, she decided to buy the book for me. Larkin's poems include some with stunning imagery and blazing emotion; his skills with lovely language are a marvel to me. I am not impressed with all of his poems, but some are so good I want to immediately pass them on. If you can find a sample of his work, I hope you enjoy it.

Songs of a dyspeptic old grouch.......2006-01-11

It seems to me that Philip Larkin actually became a dyspeptic old grouch around the age of twelve. This is not to fault his poetry -- he wrote very well. But don't come here expecting Pollyanna or Byron or Shakespeare. Larkin was pissed off by life, and expects to tell you about it. If you're in a grouchy mood, this will suit you just fine. :-)

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Wonderful Period Piece

A Girl in Winter
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Overlook TP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0879512172

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful Period Piece.......2001-11-04

In the middle of World War II, 22-year old Katherine Lind, a refugee from Europe is frozen in time and tragedy. Her past is gone -- family, friends, college life -- and she is living moment by moment, in a humiliating temporary library job, among the unfriendly aliens, somewhere in England.

Six years before it was summer, and the world was at peace. On a lark, she's decided to take up her British pen pal's invitation to a three week stay in the Oxfordshire countryside. Robin Fennel puzzles and fasicinates her. The middle part of the book takes us back six years, to that idyllic time. Katherine and Robin's relationship does not fit into any standard romantic paradigm. It is all too subtle for that, and I'd love to see this exquisitely written novel turned into one of those wonderfully atmospheric films the British excell at.

Once again, it is good to read a World War II story, free of latter day cliches, and the teary-eyed romanticism typical of its own period. This book is rather more rewarding than Larkin's first effort, Jill, in that the lead character -- he does a wonderful job with a woman, by the way -- is more complex, mature and knowing than the hapless John Kemp of Jill.

Book Description

In addition to his acknowledged position as one of Britain's most important poets of the post-World War II era, Philip Larkin was unquestionably one of the last great letter writers. There are over seven hundred letters in this impressive collection, dating from Larkin's late teens until close to his death at the age of sixty-three in 1985. Early letters to school friends, including the writer Kingsley Amis, form a portrait of the young artist, full of jazz, literature, and obscenities. Later correspondents include the novelist Barbara Pym (whose fictional portraits of genteel English country life Larkin so admired), Robert Conquest, Andrew Motion, and Julian Barnes. In his Introduction, Anthony Thwaite writes: "What is remarkable, for all the masks he put on, is how consistently Larkin emerges, whoever he is writing to . . . [The letters] are an informal record of the lonely, gregarious . . . intolerant, compassionate, eloquent, foul-mouthed, harsh and humorous Philip Larkin, who was not only one of the finest poets of our time but also a compulsive and entertaining letter-writer."

16 Pages of Black-and-White Photographs Index

Customer Reviews:

Larkin essays on jazz are insightful.......2001-09-07

For many years, Philip Larkin wrote reviews and essays on Jazz. He fell in love with the music as a young man. This love might seem odd, because Jazz is a distinctly American form of music (and Larkin almost never travelled abroad and never to America) and it is also dominated by African-Americans (Larkin has unkind things to say about minorities in his Collected Letters). Nevertheless, Larkin found in the music of Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, and others a joy that was missing from much of the rest of his life. One warning for serious Jazz fans -- for Larkin, the downfall of Jazz began with Charlie Parker. He had no interest in Parker, Mingus, Miles Davis, or almost anyone who recorded after the later 40's. In fact, he lumped Charlie Parker with Ezra Pound and Pablo Picasso as person with reputations as great artists, but whom he felt had a terrible effect on their art. In some ways, this book tells you as much about Larkin as Jazz. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm he had for Jazz, and his skill as an essayist make this an enjoyable book.

Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fiction 1943-1953

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Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fiction 1943-1953
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0571216110

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The Greatest
Tedium, Thy Name is Larkin
Diary of a sourpuss

All What Jazz
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Ediciones Paidos Iberica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

The Greatest.......2001-10-16

Larkin was a great writer and an honest critic, and this is the best-written book of popular music criticism available.
The other reviews posted for this book on Amazon are wrong to imply that Larkin's tastes were timid or stuffy. In fact his heros were Henry Allen, Pee-Wee Russell, Bessie Smith, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Jabbo Smith, Jack Teagarden and so on. These are among greatest musicians and innovators of jazz.
Yes, Larkin thought Charlie Parker was overrated; he couldn't stand Coltrane; he thought Miles Davis was a bore. But don't be afraid to read why he thought so and you may learn something about your own heros.

Tedium, Thy Name is Larkin.......2000-07-14

All What Jazz, indeed. While Philip Larkin was a poet of some note, I'm thinking it probably didn't pay real well. So he got a gig, doing a monthly jazz column for the Daily Telegraph. He used this gig to blather endlessly of the superiority of Dixieland and trad jazz, and the travesty and utter disgrace that is modern jazz, i.e., bebop, hard bop, and horror above horrors, the dreaded free jazz. Indeed, the book opens with a quote from Miles Davis, trashing Ornette Coleman's music. Nothing like hiding behind an icon, there, Phil. Miles, who was the Charles Barkley of his day, would regularly say outrageous things for effect and "press." In print, the words look harsh - the printed page does not capture Miles's raspy cackle following his "quote." But the printed page does capture quite well the clammy, pasty discomfort that Larkin feels for modern jazz. Yes, pip-pip, give me the old Dixieland bands that I loved as a lad in prep school! OK, fine. A nice remembrance piece, on occasion, is nice. A barbed attack on an artist or genre can also be thought-provoking. (I've been known to dabble in such things...) However, Larkin did it EVERY MONTH for 10 years. Talk about a one trick pony, in an era that spawned creative genius and obliterated musical boundaries, Old Frumpy Phil is pining for the syncopated rhythms of his past. He would allow for Duke and Basie, but he had little use for Bird or Monk, and if he wasn't outright trashing them, he was smugly doling out left-handed compliments. But don't get him started on Trane, or, God forbid, Ornette. Truly the only book that I have read in anger, and out of morbid curiosity. Bottom line: it wasn't worth it. Save your money, or better yet, go buy a Coltrane disk!

Diary of a sourpuss.......2000-05-17

When a reviewer calls Coltrane's playing 'possessed continually by an almost Scandinavian unloveliness', and questions Thelonious Monk's sense of rhythm, you start to get a feel for what kind of jazz he'll go for. And you'd be right: nothing ever seems to please Larkin quite so much as old-school big band or dixieland, and he's not afraid to say so. Still, he's a good writer and all, so if you're looking for a collection of jazz reviews from the 60s written by a slightly stuffy guy who never really got over Woody Herman, this is the book for you.

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Correction
What survives...
When he is good, he is very, very good.
Excellent audio rendering of Larkin's poetry.

The Whitsun Weddings
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Look, Stranger!

ASIN: 0571057500

Customer Reviews:

Correction.......2005-10-25

Larkin was no devotee of Yeats or Dylan Thomas in the period this collection dates from.

What survives..........2003-07-06

My introduction to Philip Larkin and his collection of verse,' The Whitsun Weddings' I owe to my friend David Evennett, one-time Member of Parliament for Erith and Crayford. Back when I was researcher for a Member of Parliament, I had an avocation as a poet. David discovered this, and recommended Larkin as a poetic voice worthy of attention. (His researcher acted surprised, blurting out loud much to our amusement, 'And here I always took you for a Philistine!') I have been grateful ever since, as I frequently return to this slim volume of verse for inspiration and reflection.

This volume of poetry includes 32 poems. A small book first published in 1964, it has proven so popular (something rare in poetry circles) that it has been reprinted four times during the 1970s, four times during the 1980s, and continues to be reprinted periodically up to the present day.

John Betjeman, one-time poet laureate of England, once commented of Larkin that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand.' This is the key to Larkin's verse -- accessibility. There are no obvious poetical devices that overpower the meaning or the language; there are no forced schemes, however brilliantly executed, that impose themselves on the reader. The gentle rhythms carry the reader like a slow-moving train on a well-cushioned track.

The poem `Mr. Bleaney' is the one David first drew attention to when I brought in the small book a few days after his recommendation.

But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don't know.

These words resonate with me at different times in my life, as they did with David. There is a desire to make someone of oneself, to have something to show for one's life. In the development of Mr. Bleaney's life, and his successor in the rented room, one can take stock and reappraise one's own life. What is the value, and how is it calculated?

Larkin's poetry frequently turns to the matter of religion and spirituality, without getting overly fussy or remote. In the poem Water, Larkin gives a very brief description of a spirit-freeing and pluralistic yet communal experience.

Larkin addresses the issues of age and youth, of love and loneliness, of despair and hope, all within the space of these 32 wonderful poems. The poem `Wild Oats' incorporates all of these themes in one compact, bittersweet tale of life. Who could fail to wonder at the matter-of-fact and poignant description of the man who couldn't commit to one woman, having met only briefly her more beautiful friend, and seven years later is still unable to forget? The poem `A Study of Reading Habits' likewise, dealing with dreams conjured up through reading during youth gone the way of reality in middle age, ending with a too-familiar sour-grapes feeling, `Books are a load of crap'.

Of course, I mustn't neglect the title piece, `The Whitsun Weddings'. Perfectly capturing mood and manner of weddings, the routine and the cycle of life, Larkin in fact uses the image of travelling by rail as a subtle motif for the journey through life, the Whitsun Weddings being a stop through which many (a dozen couples in this poem) proceed on their way to lives that will be lived out in `London spread out like the sun / Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.'

Larkin's final word in this collection is a very worthy word -- one that will preach, in the words of a cleric friend of mine -- and one that brings to very sweet encapsulation his image of the Arundel Tomb, carefully and tenderly drawn for us in words, evoking images of when it was first created to how it is perceived today in its state of weathered testimony of the couple buried together:

Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

May these poems survive.

When he is good, he is very, very good........2003-06-20

Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings (Faber, 1964)

Philip Larkin's fifth collection of poetry, The Whitsun Weddings, was the one that firmly established him as one of Britain's major poets. He remains today one of the best-known and most popular British neoformalists. A devotee of Yeats, Hardy, and Dylan Thomas, Larkin never wears his influences too far away from his sleeve, but don't begrudge him that; marvel, instead, that in the turbulent anything-goes sixties lived a poet, misanthrope, and mild-mannered librarian (all in the same body, no less!) who swam against a stream of free verse and wrote, arguably, better formal verse than anyone since Swinburne.

Larkin is a master of enjambment; if you encountered a random Larkin poem isolated from a collection, you might well not realize it's a formal poem until you're well into it, a hallmark of the best formal work. It reads easily and well, and Larkin never allows the meter and rhyme to get in the way of image; in short, Larkin combines the best traits of both lyric and narrative poetry, and packages them up neatly for the reader in small verse of purest pleasure.

Okay, I've just spent two paragraphs describing the best of Larkin's work. Thankfully, this collection is more "best" than "worst." But one of the tragedies of the formal poet, and one no formal poet (save, perhaps, Dante Alighieri) has ever been able to avoid, is that when you're not on top of your game, slipping a notch or two down the ladder of quality leads to the steepest of descents. The sublime can become the ridiculous far faster in formal verse than in free verse, leading to a judgment of "when he screws up, man, does he REALLY screw up." Such is the case with Larkin. The dulcet tones and free-flowing nature of his best work curdle in the mouth when he's off form, leaving trite rhymes, dull rhythms, and some of the most godawful thumping lines one is likely to see outside Helen Steiner Rice.

Still, as I said, there is far less bad than good in The Whitsun Weddings, and it does deserve its place in the annals of British literature. For those who wonder where all the formal verse has gone, Philip Larkin is one of the four or five modern poets to whom anyone can point to say "verse may be out of favor, but believe me, it is still alive and well." ***

Excellent audio rendering of Larkin's poetry........1998-04-03

Larkin's poetry captures the melancholy, timelessness, and small dramas of everyday experience, and The Whitsun Weddings contains some of his best work (the title poem, Sunny Prestatyn, Dockerey and Son, for example). Alan Bennet's reading captures precisely the feeling of these poems. His careful, restrained inflections and changes of voice heighten Larkin's subtle effects and let each poem's feeling come in a natural and unforced way. A delightful tape from beginnning to end.

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The Less Deceived
Philip Larkin
Manufacturer: Marvell Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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