Philip Larkin - The Lost Tapes

[RossMcCague]

It would be harder to memorize Geoffrey Hill. His reading is a wonder.

Season of Stealth blog

[winifredatwell]

Larkin made misery beautiful. He is the end of the line of the great poets Yeats/Eliott/Auden/Larkin who people learned by heart.

[BritAU2TH]

@winifredatwell - Yes, He used to take walks in the cemetary to cheer himself up - True

[Peterh588]

PS - 30 years ago I bought a record album called The Poet Speaks from the bargin bin at a local store. The poets were all English and Larkin the one I most enjoyed. I treasure that album but until today I had never heard Larkin read any other poems than the ones on that record. So this is good news!

[Peterh588]

I love listening to Larkin read and am pleased to learn of this discovery. I enjoyed seeing the old audio equipment in the workshop and found the news story interesting. But I would like to know who the commentators were. I wonder if any of them were prominent figures who knew Larkin.

[APublicDomain]

Thanks for putting this up. I agree with others it's an awful piece of 'journalism' for the most part though. Both tapes have been put on a cd by Faber/Faber and released as "The Sunday Sessions" now, so we can listen without bizarre editorial interruptions.

[rontomcol]

Definitely one of the greatest poets of the 20th C.... wonderful to hear him recite his own poems. Appalling news piece by Sky News though!!! Plonking a reel-to-reel recorder next to a cow just because the poem mentions cattle... I suppose we should just be grateful that they covered the story in the first place.

[chopin65]

I thought that was strange too. It gave me the impression of a Larkin kept alive on some mechanical assistance and haunting the sites of his poems.

[Arubert]

Oh how I hate tube users comments! :-D

[XxXPetsavesthedayXxX]

is this about monsters?

[ybot1983]

monster munches

[FergussonMcGregor]

Larkin, a grumpy old man for our time

[minutegongcoughs]

Along with Heaney a most charismatic user of language.

[hopkins4545]

Philip Larkin was a good poet, but the material is so blatantly nihilistic that you can't breathe

[NightmarishGuy]

Depressingly nihilistic.... But my response is a little different from yours. I come to agree with him!

[CharitableView]

I've only just though of looking this up. What would PL have possibly made of it?

[kelman727]

PL thought the poem on the page was what mattered most, but didn't object to fans who wanted to hear the poems as he spoke them. Something that gets them into people's ears can only be a good thing.

[CharitableView]

His reading is surprisingly good. It's surprising merely and mainly because it exists. But still good. What kind of man was PL? A total and utter horrid miserable old c*nt. Like me!

[GrammaConcept]

agreeing here with 'falldownfreddy...:

and also....gasp.....Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, or even...Loudon Wainwright III...

[falldownfreddy]

poetry survives in song lyrics these days, over the past forty years so many fantastic poets have been effectively ignored by the world of poetry merely for singing them- lennon and mccartney, ian curtis, morrissey, pete doherty, alex turner all produce absolutely gorgeous verse

[GrammaConcept]

and also....gasp....Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Laura Nyro, or even...Loudon Wainwright III.......

[dabsy71]

You obviously don't understand the point of poetry then. Poetry rather than lyrics..whoodaman?

[falldownfreddy]

go on then tell me what is covered by straight poetry that isnt covered by the lyricists i have just mentioned

[tmpnms2]

Written/spoken poetry can be somewhat more subtle in its inflections because it isn't as bound by metrics.

[DavidTL]

To think these things were lying in a garage for over two decades.

[ellecto]

Typically Larkin.

[Jadabh2]

course you are mate... the in a few months bit gave ya away... fair play though i fuckin love windin people up on here

[Jadabh2]

why finish with those lines... presented this way it looks as though THAT LINE was meant seriously when of course its meant to be ironic.... shows up the director to be a bit of a nitwit...

[clairelouisepotter]

haha, a very good point.

[clairelouisepotter]

this was intended to be a reply to the point about the finishing the clip on the line about love.

[Jadabh2]

thats the stupidest thing Ive heard for a very long time...you must be very young to be that silly.

[chimothy]

/watch?v=5aywJcpbXdg is fantastic, check it out

[grobbledonk]

No it isn't better than Larkin.

Not bad for a song lyricist though

[smartrat11]

why have you posted pete dohertys poetry on here ?

[steveissimo]

Do fuck off, you thick peasant ape

[smartrat11]

fucking hell i was only asking. I did mean the video ( i love larkin). i was talking about the comment from somervillain.

[steveissimo]

Have just read this - many apologies. I'm afraid I was rather drunk. I should have added an exclamation mark to me comment. One typo is the diff between a friend for life & being murdered! Apologies again tiger.

[steveissimo]

Have just read this - many apologies. I'm afraid I was rather drunk. I should have added an exclamation mark to me comment. One typo is the diff between a friend for life & being murdered! Apologies again tiger.

[PonceOnTheHeath]

I wonder who had to lug that big tape player into the churchyard, playground etc..!

[StanRd2005]

The Lost Larkin tapes on BBC radio 4 last night .You can listern again if you go to there web site .

[StanRd2005]

Their ,what a twit!!

[TotallyBursar]

Instead of words, come only the thought of High Windows, the sun-comprehending glass and beyond the deep blue air, that is nothing, and is nowhere and is endless.

Best lines of poetry I ever read. (Sorry if I haven't remembered it exactly)

[jesoby]

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:

The sun-comprehending glass,

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

[AndyLu]

Lol. homework assignment. But definately very interesting and certainly intriguing.

[liverpoolfc4ever]

i had to come on here for homework, very interesting

[uclrichard]

i totally agree with bodnot...

how frustrating - giving us a taste of the great man - and then a load of old waffle...

as larkin might say:

'fucking hell...!'

[bodnotbod]

Interesting clip but, as always, modern news media can't let an entire poem play out, so you get the constant interjections. I wanted to hear him speak a whole work. Nice to see though.

[ginganz13]

Wow - thanks - but what about those other 'critters' supposing to supose what PL might have thought? Round any great 'thing' their are always the pretemders of greatness "the seagulls follow the trawler" - I reckon he would have been aghast at 'fame' overtaking his work. "When you die you will become something worse than dead, you will become a legend" ~ faith no more

[phythip]

thanks for putting this on here...let's hope they come to be commercially available...thank you

[KaBoogi]

nice, thanks.

[favilaf]

Words at once true and kind, or not untrue and not unkind

[ginganz13]

Breath-taking stuff - one of my favourites too - talking in bed -

[666fuckyoufuckyou]

Great stuff, but I wish the others would shut up and let us just hear the recordings.

[automphalascope]

thanks alot for this - what a deliciously perfect reading voice.

[Rennelgale]

Nice one - so good of you to take the trouble to post this.

[crowe]

fuck! thanks!

[ldw2007]

I'll second that. Wonderful.

[finalsin7]

Thankyou for putting this up. It's a very hard thing to find, obviously, and I do like Larkin.