Philip Larkin: ‘writing in the language of ordinary people’ – archive, 31 March 1973
31 March 1973: Larkin talks about his approach to life and poetry as well as his efforts in editing the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse
The University of Hull is literally redbrick: squat, square blocks unrelieved by black painted window frames and meticulous green swards of grass you could not possibly set foot on. The impression is of some council estate of learning. Dr Philip Larkin’s study is severely comfortable – polished wood, high ceiling, carpet, abstract still life, grotesque photograph of an ape. A desk, fit for six company directors, is set out with studied carelessness for the business of the day. White padded armchairs are set to one side for conversations which do not require the librarian to defend his status behind a dozen feet of pine. Tea is Lapsang Souchong and weak. The ambience is of impeccable gentility which constrains you to whisper although Dr Larkin, being a mite deaf, insists that you converse as though he were 20 feet away.
Once there was a host of golden daffs, now there are cycle clips and holy ends. Dr (honorary, Belfast) Larkin’s poem Church Going is among the most anthologised modern English verse, second only to The Whitsun Weddings, and he wrote that too. The poet supposes his second volume of poems, The Less Deceived, must have sold around 10,000 copies – and this is the man who pens three poems each year and takes nine years to fill a Faber volume. He has only read his poems publicly once and that was at a party when he might not have been quite sober. He gives an overwhelming impression of not much caring for the business at all.
