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Bookclub: "Complete Poems of Philip Larkin"
Presented by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Monday, Feb. 26, 2000; 2 p.m. EST

Welcome to the online meeting of The Washington Post Book Club, a monthly program presented by the editors and writers of Washington Post Book World. Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda will be leading the discussion on this month's selection, "Complete Poems of Philip Larkin." Read Dirda's review of the book.

These days, Dirda says he spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth and daydreaming ("my only real pastime"). Otherwise he just reads books and writes about them, with occasional visits to secondhand bookstores in search of treasures. He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer working on his reviews and Readings columns. "Do not imagine that I regard my taste for literary artifacts as anything but shameless and vulgar," Dirda says, "I have sunk so low as to covet Edward Gorey coffee mugs. I yearn for a bust of Dante to place on a bookcase."

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Michael Dirda: Welcome to The Washington Post Book World's Book Club discussion of Philip Larkin, conducted by me, Michael Dirda. I believe Larkin is the first poet we've dicussed in the online club and I chose him for several reasons: 1) He's a wonderful poet; 2) he's usually very accessible; 3) he focuses on themes that interest adults--regret, various temptations,fear of death, loss, etc. 4) he's often very funny; and 5) his poems are usually fairly short. Larkin is also a prose writer of distinction--as my friend Noel Perrin wrote to me recently, his book Required Writing is one of the few collections of criticism one can simply read for pleasure. He was also a terrific, if sometimes disturbingly frank, letter writer. And, of course, he published two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, the second being particularly fine.
But enough introduction. Let me break out my copy of the poems, and we'll plunge right into our discussion. Be warned: I may throw back questions to all of you there in cyberspace.

Lenexa, Kans.: Mr. Dirda,

I especially liked the Larkin poems you listed in your write-up. My favorite Larkin's are the cold-intellectual, stark-human condition ones with the Eliot "pre-conversion" overtones--poems of the barren autumns, old people in wards, the diversion of work "to put one brick upon another", finding your Eliot-like beginnings in your endings ("Arrivals, Departures"). I admire "The Dance" partly as a kind of unfinished "Prufrock".

Questions: Was there an Eliot-Larkin personal relationship? Did the critic Eliot express an opinion? Also, is "Sally Amis" a sister of Martin? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Sally Amis is Martin's sister; his older brother is Larkin's godfather. Martin's godfathter was the wonderfully witty mystery novelist Edmund Crispin, real name, Bruce Montgomery. Crispin's funniest book, The Moving Toyshop, is dedicated to Larkin and features a poet with Larkini-like aspects. For those not aware of this, Kingsley Amis, Montgomery and Larkin were best friends at Oxford, Amis and Larkin remaining so all their lives.

I don't think there was any real connection between PL and Eliot, though they probably met at some point. Eliot isn't listed among the dozen poets PL keeps close at hand (Hardy is Larkin's professed great inspiration, though Robert FRost obviously influenced him as well, and Auden). Larkin greatly admired John Betjeman, writing about him several times, and honored Ted Hughes.
Glad you liked the poems I suggestged.

Arlington, Va.: I came upon Larkin only in the last year (I'm approaching middle-age - the timing was fortuitous). One of my favorite poems is Sad Steps, an archetypical Larkin reflection on mortality, inspired by a stark moonlit night ("Groping back to bed after a piss...").
I do stumble on a couple of lines in the fourth stanza, however:
"Lozenge of love! medallion of art!
O wolves of memory ! Immensements! No, ..."
I'm not sure of the role of these lines. Is Larkin mocking a certain style of romantic poetry? My take is that he is contrasting such sentiments with his own more earthbound reaction to the startling image behind the thick curtains.
Appreciate any insight you may have to offer.
Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Yes, he is mocking romantic excess--though as the next stanza suggests with regret that he can no longer experience it, though others, younger, still can. THe kind of thing he's making fun of is just the sort of nonsense Shelley could write and that I loved as 14 year old:
I arise from dreams of thee
IN the first sweet sleep of night
When the windes are breathing low
an

Michael Dirda: Oops, that went before I was done quoting--probably doesn't matter, but Percy B builds up to
I die, I faint, I fail!
You can only read The Indian Serenade when very young.

Casa de Oro, Calif.: When I read "Church Going" I was reminded of Riddley Walker, with it's references to religion, which seemed to have survived but also to have been transformed.

I have the book of Larkin's letters and in one he expresses displeasure that this poem is referred to as a "religious poem".

Michael Dirda: Well, it's a poem about the persistence of a kind of religious feeling, or at least a feeling for tradition, for ENglishness, possibly for the numinous. THat last stanza makes it clear: +Since someone will forever be surprising/ A hunger in himself to be more serious. . . '
But Larkin wasn't an orthodox believer; ;indeed the point of Aubade is that he can find no consolation that death brings anything but dissolution.

Silver Spring, Md.: For those of us who enjoy Larkin, what poet would you suggest who comes closest to Larkin's bleak view of the world?

Michael Dirda: WHat other poet? Hardy. Bits of Frost. But Larkin's lonely, Mr. Bleaney world is also a lot like that of the painter Edward Hopper.

Silver Spring, Md.: Michael --

Absolutely no need to reply. You are just terrific. I love that store in Wheaton Plaza, of all places. On a less intellectual note, I graduated from Maryland U in English, but don't remember any British-born instructors. Several times, when the store was upstairs, I'd rest there after shopping and zip through a new novella...I even found my own old yearbook there. I probably noticed similar magazines that you described so well yesterday, but have only an apartment. I'll have to make some space sacrifice and go back there. I look forward to seeing you in person at one of your readings. You remind me that once a book person, even with just a B.A. in it, always a book person. Thank you.

P.S. -- I do have an old Gorey coffee mug, compliments of WETA. And when a friend who, believe me, never read anything published after 1910, asked me for recommended readings highlighting each decade, I referred him to you/your columns.

Michael Dirda: Oops. This should be directed to my chat on Thursday at 2, when we discuss books and reading in general. Back to larkin.

College Park, Md.: You use the phrase "fear of death" a lot in relation to Larkin, but to me he doesn't seem fearful so much as aware and awestruck. Perhaps because he mentions it so often, you feel he is expressing fear?

Michael Dirda: Perhaps you're right. Resignation, grace under pressure, "age and then the only end of age."--still it's something he obsesses about: How should one live? Why put up with work? Why not live a different life? Such quesitons do imply an awareness of life's brevity. Larkin wrote and felt as though he were 60 his entire adult life.

Spring Valley, Calif.: I like "Mother, Summer, I". My mother, too, hates thunderstorms, but successfully hid that to the degree we children loved them. I like the different generational take on the season.

Michael Dirda: THanks.

Silver Spring, Md.: Tell me what you like most about his "Aubade," please. Also, did he write most of his poems in strict forms?

Michael Dirda: Almost everything: The simple, straightforward language, the reflections on mortality, "Not to be anywhere,/ ANd soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true." The last stanza building to Postmen like doctors go from house to house. Do you not like the poem?

Bethesda, Md.: The poet, Philip Larkin, sees the contradictions and the negative forces in all that we do and observe. Is there any humor or optimism lurking in the shadows of his formalized, non-lyrical language? His poetry gives the impression that he is an angry man, angry at life, and angry with the consequences that always seem to follow. Do you believe that he is more angry on a personal level rather than a global level? When all is said and done, what special message are we supposed to get from Larkin's poetry, in other words,what is his unique contribution for the reader?

Michael Dirda: To me, your questions sound too high-falutin. We enjoy art for what it is, for the expression of feelings and fears common to all people, for cleverness and aptness of expression, but not for any special message. Larkin isn't so much angry, most of the time, as he is adult: He feels people should be repsonsible, accept what cannot be changed, recognize that life is often a cheat, that we all lose in the end. He is a poet of stoicism, resignation, of getting on with one's work regardless of how one feels.

Casa de Oro, Calif.: You mentioned in introducing the book that he turned down the Poet Laureateship and I found a reference in one of his letters to a couple of reasons. Apparently he wasn't writing much, and he didn't want to become (I love this) "Mr. Poetry."

Michael Dirda: Yes. In truth, he was no longe writing much poetry--the muse had abandoned him--and he didn't feel he could do the job. Plus he was, I think, already ill. IN an exchange with Amis he talked about haveing a nightmare in which he was offered the laureateship, but he wakes up screaming and hoping that it will go to Ted Hughes--which it ultimately did.

College Park, Md.: I take it back: Aubade is certainly "about" feeling horrified by the idea of death.

Michael Dirda: Yes, say more. I sense you have more you want to discuss about the poem.

Dayton, Ohio: I did not understand "The Whitsun Weddings." Could you give me a little explanation? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Gosh, let's throw this open to the general audience. Does someone want to say anything about The Whitsun Weddings?

Washington, D,C.: Why do you think scholars are so dismissive of Larkin's work as being facile? It seems to me that his great skill is what is often lacking in poetry today -- a sense of clarity in formal meditations on challenging subjects, including mortality and life as an ordinary citizen in an ordinary world.

Like Thomas Hardy, Larkin constantly reminds us that we cannot escape the taste of our own dead skin. Unlike Hardy, Larkin’s comic view and self-abasing humor allows these observations to rise above pain and remorse. Yet if Larkin’s skill were simply to paint pictures of what is most wanting in himself, his work would be more eccentric than memorable. What makes Larkin’s work transcend the schtick of self-abasement is not only humor but his ability to make what he called the “audacious, purifying, elemental move.” In fact, for all his whining in his poems about not being able to take a big step in life, his poems are dominated by deft and sudden flashes of insight and giant leaps of illumination that show unexpected courage and agility in movement.

Your comments?

Michael Dirda: I think Larkin's clarity and directness have been construed as facileness, just as his attitudes to literature, love, and other "esthetic" matters have been labeled philistine.
And yes, you're right about his elmental moves and sudden insights in the poems: he does comment on and rise above mere self-indulgence. His verse also proffers what one critic called the melody of intelligennc. He works his way through little stories in his poem and leaves yhou with some kind of epiphany. His poems are sometimes rathre like tghe stories in Joyce's Dubliners.

Centreville, Va.: Thank you for introducing Philip Larkin, a poet completely unknown to me. Perhaps because I am well into middle age myself he seems a poet of middle age, when one learns to accept that some things will never be and some things are gone forever. I concentrated particularly on the poems you mentioned as the "canon" and browsed through the rest of the book as well. I especially enjoyed "At Grass" with its lovely pastoral picture of old race horses and its reminder of retirement and advancing age.
A poem called "Maiden Name" really spoke to me. Giving up one's maiden name now seems to be optional but I took it for granted that I would, and did. When you give up your maiden name and move away from the place where you grew up, you become another person and the girl you once were no longer exists. I never before read anything by a male author that acknowledged this.
"Long Last" really described the confusion of advanced old age and struck me as deeply sad. I found some new favorites in Larkin that I will remember for a long time.

Michael Dirda: Thank you for a lovely min-essay. Certainly, Larkin had the imaginative sympathy to understand all sorts of loss. I find At Grass terribly moving myself. So simple, so true to the way things are and must be.

Casa de Oro, CA: I assumed that, like June for brides, Whitsunday is a day when a lot of people get married. I liked the idea of all the people on the train having acquired a shared memory of what they saw that day.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

College Park, MD: I haven't read a "collected" set of poems cover-to-cover before, and I thank MD for suggesting this book. What struck me after a couple of long sessions was "So that's how it feels to be an old man." I'm an old woman, and Larkin's outlook did not "speak" to me of my own situation -- that famous P-M Zest that brings so many women out of depression after age 50. But I was glad to be exposed to his articulate woe.

Michael Dirda: Well, Larkin wasn't really that old--he died at 63, but he had an aged sensibility all his life. I think he would call it being adult, or grown up. His is a world where everything is second-best, no one is really happy, and the satisfactions available are very few: drink, music, certain books. I find this a congenial temperament--my own is similar--and it does represent the world of the late middle-aged: quiet desperation. Where has romance gone? Those old dreams? Youth?

Washington, D.C.: It's easy to see why most of the commentary involves Larkin's solemn or cynical poems--since they comprise the majority of his work--but on a beautiful day like this I also think of his poem about spring, "Coming." It ends "And I, whose childhood/Is a forgotten boredom,/Feel like a child/Who comes on a scene/Of adult reconciling,/And can understand nothing/But the unusual laughter,/And starts to be happy."

A tribute to spring from a poet as chilly as Larkin, qualified as it may be, strikes me as especially moving, as does the last line from the similarly qualified "An Arundel Tomb"--"What will survive of us is love."

Michael Dirda: THank you for reminding us of the sunnier Larkin. The last line of An Arundel Tomb is one of his most famous, and touching. The poem was read aloud at his memorial service.

Lenexa, Kans.: I found great sadness in the poem "Wires"--put me in mind of Nietzsche's comment "They made the boy Eros drink poison." In my experience, I've unfortunately found there's no avoiding the electricity.

Michael Dirda: Ah yes. There's no avoiding the electricity, but sometimes, for a while, we think we might. And so we shock ourselves again and again.

Washington, D.C.: I'm hoping someone will have more to say than--alas--I do, in response to requests for wisdom on The Whitsun Weddings. I think it's a wonderful poem for the imagery alone ("Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat"), but have never been sure what to make of the message. I had always rather thought that the final phrase, "somewhere becoming rain," wasn't necessarily negative (since rain helps to nurture), but a New Yorker article by Martin Amis several years ago (and he should know better than I) made me think I was naive.

Michael Dirda: Thakns for the insights.

Dayton, Ohio: So Whitsun Weddings is about shared memories-- I like that. I will read it again with that in mind.

Michael Dirda: Ok. I think it is a difficult poem, and I confess that I don't admire it as much as I should, it being the title for one of Larkin's best collections. But that's what makes poetry so wonderful: You can get some of the meaning and music the first time, but the music will keep you coming back to revisit lines or meanings that left you puzzled. ONe of my favorite modern poets, William Empson, wrote incredibly knotty lines, but some of them carry a kind of elusive clarity: "Slowlly the poison the whole blood stream fills/ The waste remains, the waste remains and kills."
But now we've moved away from Larkin. Thank you all for sending in questions and spending an hour talking about this wondterful poet. I hope his poems will find a place on your bedside tables.
In the meantime: Remember Dirda on Books will be on this Thursday at 2 PM. The Wednesday hour is kaputt, over, and we'll be meeting on Thursdays now. Hope you can drop by.
Till then, keep reading!

Ex-: Thanks for choosing poetry, and this poet, who I had not read previously. I admire Larkin’s craftmanship immensely. Some of his simplest lines – those where he leaps out of the immediate concern – won’t leave me: “Only our heats go beating toward the east” (from “Come then to prayers”) and “A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower / Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain” (The Whitsun Weddings).

I was searching for, and hadn’t yet lit upon, something to compare these poems to. Thank you for mentioning “Dubliners”. Of course!

But to tell you the truth I would never read Larkin to soothe myself back to a troubled sleep at 4 am. No, I don’t find solace in much of Larkin, rather company for when I am gloomily contemplating the expected tragedies of adult life (e.g., Aubade) or the wider world (At Grass). Solace lies elsewhere. Larkin is for a grey winter afternoon when dogs’ barking echoes in the empty streets.

But still, it’s good to have the company.

Michael Dirda: THanks.

College Park, MD: My first PL poem, heard on NPR a few years ago early in the morning, read by Garrison Keillor, was "Is it for now or for always," and I loved its wry suspicion of love, its climactic exhortation to "my sudden angel," its final awareness that we'll always have "now." I was at first surprised to find it relegated to the "early poems" section of the Collected Poems, but I suppose its youthful energy might mark it as not quite grown up enough to sit at the adult table. Still, I'm glad that was my introduction to him. I memorized it, almost immediately (but wrote it down, too).

Michael Dirda: Thanks

Michael Dirda: ANd now goodbye. Till thursday.

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