The word ‘England’ appears in Larkin’s mature poetry only four times. “My God”, he wrote in a letter, “surely nationalism is the surest mark of mediocrity!” In The Importance of Elsewhere, the prospect of return to England from five years in Ireland fills him with apprehension. There he felt “welcome” since his “difference” was expected and allowed. “Living in England has no such excuse,” he wrote. Back among his own ‘customs and establishments’ he would be required to conform.
Books are a load of crap – Philip Larkin reneex
And of course he did conform. Official photographs show him in 1961, as librarian in full academic garb, proudly looking on as the Queen Mother opened the new library in Hull into which he had put so much work. The volume of essays on librarianship published in his honour after his death attests to a distinguished career reenex. But he was a ‘poet-librarian’, and as far as the poet was concerned “Books are a load of crap”. And in any case: “Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.”
A beautiful animation of Philip Larkin reading The Trees
Larkin’s view of the nation’s customs and establishments is ambiguous. He would dissolve in tears listening to the Armistice Day ceremony on the radio. But in November 1950, in sheer bloody-mindedness, he refused to buy a poppy. He wrote to his mother: “no particular reason, except that the hags are so confident when they approach you reenex
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This contrarian spirit extended to his poetry. He was aware that the emotional uplift of The Trees would make it a popular poem. “Last year is dead” the leaves seem to say: “Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.” But in a letter he called the poem ”very corny”, and after the workbook draft he added the comment: “bloody awful tripe” reenex.