Larkin at the Poetry Archive

The wonderful Poetry Archive, a collection of audio recordings of poets reading their own work, has recently been updated with some Philip Larkin - The Whitsun Weddings, Mr. Bleaney and The Trees (here). The Whitsun Weddings was recently voted the 'nation's favorite poem' and Larkin their favorite poet. Here, I duly - proudly - announce myself as one of the great, teeming, sweaty, brutish mass.

I've now heard six recordings of Larkin reading his poetry (the three now up at the archive; Aubade, Love Songs in Age and, last year on radio 3, a live recording of The Whitsun Weddings). Such is Larkin's voice and style that the recordings resonate through each rereading of the poems. As the archive posits in their introduction, "Hearing a poet reading his or her work remains uniquely illuminating. It helps us to understand the work as well as helping us to enjoy it." Yes, always illuminating. But no, not necessarily enjoyable. Thankfully, with these recordings it is both.

Larkin rarely gave readings. Some have postulated it was because of his stammer, but in an interview with the Paris Review*, he gave the decision some intellectual justification:

"Hearing a poem, as opposed to reading it on the page, means you miss so much- the shape, the punctuation, the italics, even knowing how far you are from the end. Reading it on the page means you can go your own pace, taking it in properly; hearing it means you're dragged along at the speaker's own rate, missing things, not taking it in, confusing there and their and things like that..."

First: Yes, but only when the poem is previously unread. So read the poems first. Second: After listening, read them again. That I agree with Larkin does not mean I will stop reading, - or, when I've remembered a poem enough to only half forget it, "reciting" - Larkin's work at those too close to me to leave. As you can't prevent this, perhaps best to have the poems in mind. It will, as Larkin's work is apt to do in so many other areas, ease your pain.

*Page 8.

"ME BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH"

That was the headline, glanced over the shoulder of a businessman, of a report in the Daily Mail on the Queen's recent meeting with Bruce "Two Dogs" Bozsum, leader of the Mohegan tribe of American Indians. The report was on page five. Isn't it an awful jolt to be reminded that the front page of the Daily Mail is only the first page of the Daily Mail?

"A comedian, she said, should be the sort of person, she said, that as soon as you look at them, she said, it makes you wanna laugh, she said..."

"A montage of hilarious features" - BBC

Above is the 'perfect comedy face', a blend of "179 facial aspects of 20 top comedians" created by scientists at the University of Stirling. They use it to argue that feminine features - a wide face, large eyes and softfeatures" are "the features most likely to mark male comedians out for success," as they imply a friendly, agreeable and cooperative nature. (BBC)

It would be quite interesting to see whether the same could be said for alternative comics, or those whose act is more confrontational; or whether the reverse is true for female comics (though finding the top 20 may be rather a difficult task). I'm drawing a blank when coming up with names, mainly because conducting the research with nothing more to go on than "wide face, large eyes and soft features", with no research team around you, is a decidely fluffy exercise.

It reminds me somewhat of this bit from Stewart Lee, here.