Philip Larkin

"Poets reading from their work. Discuss."

I hate to silence this discussion before it has begun, but here's my side of the argument: There is one poet who is right on the money where reading from their own work is concerned.

From this little distance it is clear that Larkin is one of the greatest of the poets that rose to prominence after the first glitzy, well-travelled wave of the Moderns. There's no doubt that his Englishness, often derided, is an integral part of his poetry (and of his life), but it certainly does not contain it.

Larkin fanatics will be keen to point out to you the metaphysical undercurrent that almost always reaches out to the reader in the final stanza of a poem. They're right: his poems are anything but parochial. As Larkin himself wrote in his poem I Remember, I Remember: "Nothing, like something, happens anywhere."

To hear him read is to hear the peculiar footfalls of a thinking voice. Quite extraordinary.

Mp3s of some of his readings follow the jump...

From The Less Deceived:

Toads

Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album

From The Whitsun Weddings:

Days

Water

Sunny Prestatyn

Larkin's reading of the two collections in their entirety can be purchased here. Very reasonably priced, and well worth it.

Also, here's Larkin reading This Be The Verse, the poem which he sadly acknowledged would come to define him: