"The Trees" by Philip Larkin (poetry reading)

The first picture is of Pearson Park, in Hull, visible from Philip Larkin's top floor flat where he lived from 1956 to 1974 when he wrote this poem. If you want to see this for atmosphere,. copy "30 Pearson Park, Hull, City of Kingston-upon-Hull HU5 2, UK" into Google, then select Maps. Then drag the little figure to the T junction.. You can then see where Larkin lived on the white top floor - with tall "High Windows" - and sweep around to look at the park. It you go about 50 yards further on you can see the fountain and children's play area shown in the first picture.
Of course, it was then nearly 40 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkin

The tree is a perennial plant. It dies is autumn and is reborn in spring. It's possible for a tree to "live" for 4000 years. However that's only because it retains its structure, instead of growing anew from seed. Trees could be said to live and die within a year because each year brings another cycle of life, which might be considered reincarnation rather than continuity. Our lives are different in that they have only one cycle.
Here's Larkin himself reading it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXf-gq65GO0

The second picture is of 105, Newland Park, Hull, where he lived from 1974 until his death.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Category:

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Tags:

• Trees
• Philip
• Larkin
• old
• age
• death
• rebirth
• reincarnation
• renewal
• spring

[staylopictures]

That first photograph is so awful it almost ruins the poem.

[SpokenVerse]

@staylopictures It's the view from Larkin's "High Windows"

[rappamarfil]

That is morose , exacerbated ... Reminds one of what tse dry heaved to open the wasteland a dessication of the ringing start of the Canterbury tales . This is the courtly love from whence we arrive at besvis and butthead dry humping a sofa Where'er you walk Cool gales shall fan the glade Trees where you sit Shall crowd into a shade Trees where you sit Shall crowd into shade Where'er you walk Cool gales shall fan the glade Trees where you sit Shall crowd into a shade Trees where you sit Shall cr

[jonno52]

What a difference a spoken reading can make. I mention this poem to people who say Larkin is all "doom & gloom", and have emphasised the positive message of renewal in the last line. But hearing it read now, it's the notion that it's only a "yearly trick" that seems the more abiding message. Larkin was ultimately fairly consistently pessimistic: Andrew Motion, having gained Larkin's wary go-ahead for an "authorised" biography, observed in a moment of frustration "Why doesn't he just CHEER UP?"

[scifiwritir]

Loved that. Came at the right time as well.

[APDurrant]

I am not normally a larkin fan, but I enjoyed that.