Today [for my random poems series] I have chosen Philip Larkin, The Complete Poems. So, who was Philip Larkin? We'll talk about who he was and what his style was, but let's read a couple of poems first. These are short poems, so I'm going to read a couple of them.
This is Philip Larkin, from The Less Deceived, “Reasons for Attendance.”
[note that the transcript of my reading of the poem renders the format different to the original and there may be different spellings for certain words]
The trumpet's voice, loud and authoritative, draws me a moment to the lighted glass, to watch the dancers, all under twenty-five, shifting intently, face to flushed face, solemnly on the beat of happiness. Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke and sweat, the wonderful feel of girls.
Why be out here, but then why be in there? Sex, yes, but what is sex? Surely to think the lion's share of happiness is found by couples. Sheer inaccuracy, as far as I'm concerned. What calls me is that lifted, rough-tongued bell, art, if you like, whose individual sound insists I too am individual.
It speaks, I hear, others may hear as well, but not for me, nor I for them. And so with happiness, therefore I stay outside, believing this, and they maul to and fro, believing that, and both are satisfied, if no one has misjudged himself or lied.
This book of poetry was published in 1954, and according to scholars, this marks his maturity as a poet.
He was born in 1922, so he would have been in his 30s, early 30s at this time. And the poem tells a story that he's, not really a story, but just a little vignette in his life. He's looking through a glass window at what's obviously a dance party, like a jazz dance party, because it starts with trumpets, right? The trumpet's voice, loud and authoritative.
And the trumpet figures throughout the poem. Later, he calls it a rough-tongued bell, whose individual sound insists I too am individual. So he's drawn to the music.
He's drawn especially to the sound of the trumpet. He must have been somewhat into jazz at that time. There are references to famous songs in the poem, but not for me.
This is after World War II, right? So it's kind of in the flush of post-World War II victory and yet devastation, people trying to find happiness where they can. In England, which of course was devastated by the war, and everybody's on rations, it's a difficult time. He comes from a sort of maybe middle-class, upper-middle-class family.
He was born in 1922, and he did go to Oxford. You can tell that he's very well-educated in his poems, a lot of literary references. He's trying to find a distinctively modern voice here.
There's definitely rhyming in this poem, and yet a kind of modern feel to it as well. So he obviously respects the classical tradition. He's familiar with the classics of literature, but he's trying to reach beyond.
But it's not ultra-modern. It's still I think kind of Brahmsian in that it's modern, but it's still structured by tradition. The theme of the poem seems to be that he's looking dispassionately at a very passionate scene.
You have young men and women dancing together to the sounds of jazz. This is right before the rock and roll revolution, so they're all dancing tightly, closely. There's smoke and sweat.
You can kind of sense the hormones flowing. So it's really kind of a dance club scene that seems to have taken place in some kind of student environment. He was a librarian, I believe.
Not that that has anything directly to do with this, but he seems to be making a comment on the allure of sexual attraction, the passion and the heat versus the dispassionate observer. As a scholar of nightlife, I can kind of identify with this poem. It's interesting that coincidence drew me to it, but not for me nor I for them.
And so with happiness, therefore I stay outside. So even though he's aged out of this scene, he makes a point that the young people in this scene are all under 25 and he's in his early 30s. So he's definitely not the same age group, probably wouldn't have the same pull as the young men.
Young people tend to be attracted to each other. Only in rare cases would they be attracted to older people. And that's, I suppose, the natural state of things as he alludes to.
This is nature, this is the forces of nature's sexual attraction, that we are drawn to each other through our innate sexual attraction for each other. But can this lead to happiness? He seems very doubtful, very skeptical. And I think that explains the title of the book, The Less Deceived.
Yeah, this is a very interesting poem. It's a poem that you can read through a few times and get more out of it. It's almost like a conversation, like he's talking to you.
It's not quite... you know, it sort of hovers between poetic language and conversational language. Why be out here? But then why be in there? Sex? Yes, but what is sex? So I think he's contemplating, he's talking to himself, he's talking to the audience. He's trying to make a point about maybe abstention.
That seems to be a theme in his poetry. I know that he never got married. He had some relationships with other women, some long-term relations, but he was a passionate disbeliever in marriage, as you can see from some of his other poems.
This one too, he says at one point, surely to think the lion's share of happiness is found by couples, sheer inaccuracy as far as I'm concerned. So marriage or coupling does not necessarily lead to happiness, probably leads to the opposite over time.
And then there's this other poem here, “Dry Point,” which is interesting.
Endlessly, time-honored irritant, a bubble is restively forming at your tip. Burst it as fast as we can, it will grow again until we begin dying. Silently it inflates till we're enclosed and forced to start the struggle to get out.
Bestial, intent, real. The wet spark comes, the bright blown walls collapse. But what sad scapes we cannot turn from them.
What ashen hills, what salted shrunken lakes, how leaden the ring looks. Birmingham magic all discredited. And how remote that barren sun-scrubbed room, intensely far that padlocked cube of light, we neither define nor prove.
Where you, we dream, obtain no right of entry.
A bit of a mysterious poem, but if you read the commentary, because one nice thing about this collection of Philip Larkin's poems is that it has extensive and very scholarly annotations and commentary in the back. So actually, there is more commentary than there are poems, I think, in this book.
It's one of those kind of books, very scholarly. So if we read the commentary, it's about sex. It's about how sex dominates our lives.
That's what he, the poet himself, said to a friend. “I get endless trouble about Dry Point. School girls write to me about it, and I have to explain that originally it was one of two poems about sex and that modesty forbids me to say any more.
“Dry Point is saying how awful sex is and how we want to get away from it.” I think what you can see in this poem is he calls it an irritant. So it's the sexual desire kind of bubbles up inside of us like an irritant, and the bubble keeps building until it explodes, maybe with a sexual climax, and then it begins again, right? So it never ends.
It's something that's always in us, wanting to get out, and then gets out, collapses, dies, and then starts up again. It's kind of the rhythms of life. So it definitely connects to the other poem I just read, “Reasons for Attendance.”
So both of them are about the lure of sexual attraction, but also the fantasy, the illusion that this will lead to happiness. This is not just some kind of innate state. What sad scapes we cannot turn from them, what ashen hills, what salted shrunken lakes.
It sounds very much like Keats, doesn't it? It's like one of Keats' odes, but it's much more, I suppose, modern and cynical than that, than Keats. Yeah, so these are two of Philip Larkin's poems from the bursting of his maturity as a poet from The Less Deceived, and reading these poems and analyzing them definitely makes me want to read more of Philip Larkin. I think he has an interesting and rather unique voice in English poetry, and that's what this project is all about, is trying to dig deeper into poetry and trying to form a better appreciation of the great poets of modern and maybe even ancient times.
Who knows? I have a lot of books of poetry. I've recently expanded my collection, and looking forward to digging into more poems with you again. We'll see how far we can go with this little project of mine.