"They fuck you up, your mum and dad" might seem a little strong and unexpected from a librarian. Might also seem a little direct for a poet. The line is from the poem This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin - who was both a librarian and a poet.

He started his career as a librarian after finishing at Oxford University with a first-class honours degree in 1943 (where he met and befriended writer Kingsley Amis). He wrote various pieces (sometimes under the pseudonym Brunette Coleman) and he published his first book of poetry The North Ship under his own name in 1945. The book was a collection of thirty-one poems, including a series of five poems about the journey of a Northbound ship. He wrote the poems during his time at Oxford and while working at a public library in Shropshire, England.

He also wrote two novels in his early twenties. The first entitled Jill (1946) was about a north-country boy who went to Oxford University, and the second, A Girl in Winter (1947), was a story about a brief period in the life of a library assistant.

Larkin's career as a librarian saw a move to Leicester and then on to The Queen's University of Belfast in 1950 during which time he developed his writing skills. After a few years he took a higher position and moved to Hull in Northern England. Larkin's travels then stopped, and he stayed in Hull for the rest of his life. His main mode of transport from then on was a bicycle.

A year after arriving in Hull, he rented a second floor flat overlooking Pearson Park - a large space set with trees and formal gardens (around three kilometers from the university). Larkin based a poem called High Windows on the view from his flat and other works were inspired by areas in and around Hull. The flat served as a base for his writing for many years, along with his office at the university which in some ways underlined his poem Toads, which bemoaned how work stole time from creativity.

He was initially influenced by poets such as W.B. Yeats, but later, Thomas Hardy become a reference point for his style, and the media associated Larkin with a group of writers around during the fifties known as The Movement who wrote poetry that was descriptive and understandable, rather than symbolist or modernist in style. His work reflected his own experiences and had an underlying dry sense of humour, wit and an understanding of everyday life, even though the focus was on life's more mundane, somber and reflective moments.

In 1955 a collection of poems written during his time in Belfast entitled The Less Deceived was published, but his work at Hull University library (including the construction of a new library building) slowed his own creative output. Late fifties to early sixties saw the publication of An Arundel Tomb and The Whitsun Weddings. His final collection of poetry High Windows was published in the early seventies, and later in the decade he wrote Aubade - a poem which related a dawn experience about thoughts on life and death.

Larkin liked a drink and loved early American jazz (he had a drum kit and saxophone as a young boy) and wrote as a Jazz critic for The Telegraph newspaper from the sixties to the early seventies. His reviews were later printed as collection under the title All What Jazz (Faber and Faber). He also enjoyed photography and took pictures of people he knew (including self portraits), and locations or situations he experienced during his life.

Philip Larkin died in 1985 aged 63. After his death, some of his private views and personal interests were exposed after the publication of private letters (edited by Anthony Thwaite), and a biography by Andrew Motion (Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life 1993). Larkin had asked for his personal diaries to be destroyed while he was sick with cancer, but other personal papers, notebooks and letters survived. His attitudes were mostly conveyed in writing as letters or remarks to his love interests, his mother, and personal friends - his tone tended to depend on who he was corresponding with and he was sometimes crude or childish. After publication, the response to some of his personal letters was a mix of defense and shock as an undercurrent of seemingly suppressed tensions in his love-life and extreme views surfaced.

The perception of Larkin as a person is sometimes portrayed as pessimistic, miserable, and solitary. People who knew and worked with him had good things to say about him, and he had complicated love interests during his life including a long-term relationship (although he never married). He shunned publicity and didn't appear in media interviews (although he sometimes contributed), and had no real interaction with the public or in literary circles. He focussed on his own world which eventually revolved around writing and working in Hull. He stopped writing poetry in the late seventies after concluding his poetry days were behind him. He finally had to move from his flat and bought his own house in Hull during the mid seventies.

Philip Larkin died in 1985 aged 63. One final poem, Love Again (about sexual jealousy), was published after his death. Today, he is regarded as an important poet and he is remembered in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, along with memorials in Hull. Online, his work is curated and discussed by The Philip Larkin Society. A biography by Andrew Motion, Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life, was published in 1993, and a life story and dramatised documentary entitled Philip Larkin: Love and Death in Hull was released in 2003.

By Matt Sheen September MMXX - See video playlist for references

Screen

EXIT