"The Whitsun Weddings" by Philip Larkin

[sum1otosh1]

This is a poem about life's journey into death. Not a poem about marriage

[SpokenVerse]

@sum1otosh1 What makes you think so? Your remark has no meaning unless you explain it. The poem appears to be about observing people getting married, culminating in "What it held stood ready to be loosed with all the power that being changed can give".

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse Oh that would take some time. The train journey itself is a metaphor for going through life. The things he sees outside the windows get more and more 'grown up'  Starting with memories of childhood fun, playing cricket, getting married and finally the 'dark tunnel' There are lots of other things like industrial froth which represents sickness etc etc. Larkin's obsession with death is a hint towards this. It's quite a lonely point of view also. Being the spectator rather than

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse taking part. So it's also a commentary on the poet's place in life. The observer and recorder of life, joy, sorrow and death.

There is a very atheistic feel to the poem also. The point that Whit Sunday is a religious day yet the commentator is less interested in the god aspect, more interested in the human life around him.

[SpokenVerse]

@sum1otosh1I agree about the train journey being a metaphor but for marriage not mortality. People often do get married on Whit Sunday: he was reporting something that happened to him. The things you say about Larkin's preoccupations are true but I don't see them in this poem - no "dark tunnel", for instance.

My own observation is that Larkin's obsession with illness and death is not uncommon in those who do not have anybody that they care about more than they care about themselves.

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse "There we were aimed. And as we raced across Bright knots of rail. Past standing pullmans, walls of blackened moss Came close and is was nearly done; this frail travelling coincidence"

Has always reeked of death to me. It seems to fit with Larkin's preoccupation with death. It's one of those debates we could have until the end of time and still not find a real answer lol. Nonetheless a fantastic poem.

[hyacinthegirl]

@sum1otosh1 I agree with SpokenVerse; Whit Sunday is a very common, almost cliched, day to get married, and that's the extent of its significance to the poem, I would say. It's a day when all of these parallel lives (that "would all contain this hour") fleetingly line up with one another before drifting apart again "like an arrow-shower ... somewhere becoming rain." I don't see atheism or mortality as coming into play here at all (for once). Quite the opposite, actually: he's reflecting on life.

[trifelgeputinage]

Thank you, I know this poem by heart, it's my favourite ever poem, I love it, it's very close to my heart. I like your rerading.

I would like to share my rendition with you but I'm a perfectionist and there are one or two lines I need to brush up on after all these years!

Maybe soon though! : )

[SuperMouthwash]

Larkin is nearly alone among recent poets in his overt distaste for sex (High Windows, This be the verse, Annus Mirabilis):- but he writes the most beautiful poem about marriage of the last fifty years (at least).

I'm sure Larkin would have relished the irony.

[SpokenVerse]

A distaste for sex? Maybe. But look up the stories of Brunette Coleman on Google.

[Kenentigern7]

@SuperMouthwash Just came across yours. Not sure his was a distaste to my reading he was frightened of the exposure of self that sex would require of him. Amis who probably understood him best, man and boy, I think in his correspondence and his eulogy at Larkins funeral referred and continued to puzzle over larkins reticence at "sealing the deal". His most notorious line probably explains the core of this issue.

[andrewshere]

Wonderful reading, thank you.

Sorry to be picky, but I wonder if it's possible to fix the two typos in the text.

Thanks again.

[SpokenVerse]

Thanks I have superimposed them on the text now, which is the best I can do without deleting and reposting the video.

[chippanfire]

Larkin at his best.

[jonno52]

Very good reading of a truly great poem. Thank you.

[Myklett]

Wonderful poem, wonderful reading. Thank you.