Tiny In All That Air

'He [Ted Hughes] writes about the Humber as this mythical creature in a way, that consumes all of the outpouring of the people of Hull.'

Dr Anna Stevenson is a Trustee of the Philip Larkin Society- she also works at the Brynmor Jones Library and was born and grew up in Holderness, so she has a very special affinity with Philip Larkin as well as Ted Hughes. This episode was recorded in Larkin's office in the library, which is great for atmosphere, but a little echoey at times.

In this discussion we talk about Hughes' poem The Road to Easington and its links to Philip Larkin's poetry.

Poems discussed:

Larkin- Here,Show Saturday, High Windows, A Bridge for the Living

Hughes- Mayday in Holderness, Song

Sylvia Plath- The Bee Meeting

We also mention TS Eliot, Shakespeare and John Betjeman along the way.

To mark Halloween, Lyn takes us on a walk around her local cemetery and reads Ghosts by Philip Larkin.

Thank you to Joe Riley for inspiration - please listen to his excellent in situ poetry podcast Sketch Poetry

https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ubm0zfLmjrOqVqMWulgf0

Spooky music- thank you to https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-music/download/ghost-stories/1291

Read the poem here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/ernxrt/poem_ghosts_by_philip_larkin/

or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Poems-Philip-Larkin/dp/0571240062

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin ed. Archie Burnett (Faber and Faber, 2012)

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg

Lyn and Chris discuss the recent writing workshop run by the Philip Larkin Society called Drafting a World: a Poetry Writing Workshop inspired by the poetry of Philip Larkin, with Nottingham based writer Jane Bluett at the Avenues in Hull on Saturday 11th October at ArtLink. Chris reads his  new Larkin poem from the workshop, Father of the Bride and we talk about the power of using Larkinalia and Larkin’s words to inspire us. We also discuss the treasures to be found in About Larkin, Maurice Rutherford,  the upcoming PLS Book Club and Jill, and the upcoming Stage4Beverley music and literature festival, for which Chris is festival poet, our shared love of yarnbombing and the (very small) PLS Makers Society. We also look ahead to the 2026 PLS Conference March 19-20th.

Larkin texts discussed

The Whitsun Weddings, High Windows, Water, Toads Revisited, Jill, A Girl In Winter, Required Writing, For Sidney Bechet

Other writers/texts mentioned:

Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood (1954), Maurice Rutherford Here 2012, (from Under Travelling Skies ed. Cliff Forshaw) (2012) An Enormous Yes (Peterloo Poets, 1986), Wendy Cope Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (Faber and Faber 1986), Barbara Pym,Ted Hughes,  Kingsley Amis, TS Eliot, Saltburn (dir. Emerald Fennell, 2023), Brian Bilston, Simon Armitage, Alan Johnson

Reading/references:

'Fifty Years On: Bringing 'The Whitsun Weddings' to Life: A performance by Ensemble 52: 6 June 2014. A report is on page 14 of this pdf of the society's journal: About Larkin...About-Larkin-38.pdf. 

Wendy Cope

the poem, Mr Strugnell, is featured in Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (Faber & Faber, 1986)

Wendy Cope - Poetry Archive

About Larkin 15- featuring article by Sean O’Brien and Wendy Cole’s interview with Larkin’s neighbours at 32 Pearson Park

https://philiplarkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/About-Larkin-15.pdf

Maurice Rutherford

https://www.thehullstory.com/allarticles/maurice-rutherford-obituary

Stage 4 Beverley

Festival Poet - Chris Sewart – Stage 4 Beverley Festival Poet, in association with The Philip Larkin Society - Stage 4 Beverley

Tickets and line-up -  Stage 4 Beverley

Artlink.

Venue for PLS poetry Writing Workshops: Artlink Hull

Chris Sewart Society of Authors profile page:

Chris Sewart - The Society of Authors

Some of Chris's recent poems can be found/purchased at:

Echoes - 20 years of Write Out Loud | Write Out Loud

The Fig Tree - Issue 9 - by Tim Fellows - The Fig Tree  

 The Fig Tree - Issue 10 - by Tim Fellows - The Fig Tree

The Fig Tree Coal Mining Anthology - Shop – Crooked Spire Press

The Leaf, issue 2 - The Leaf issue 2 | Three Blue Beans

Please register to attend the PLS Conference 2026 here (currently at an Early Bird rate)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1727992314529?aff=oddtdtcreator

Hull History Centre Larkin event on November 15th- art workshop followed by talk on Ted Tarling- please purchase your tickets here and come along

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1761076670729?aff=oddtdtcreator

Music:

Henry Allen Feeling Drowsy (1929)

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg and https://www.podmachine.com/

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com

Daniel Seifert is a journalist and editor who has written for the New York Times, National Geographic and BBC. His poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, Rattle and Terrain. He lives in Singapore, and tweets @DanSeifwrites. 

Larkin poems discussed:

The Mower, The Trees, Two Guitar Pieces, Broadcast ,For Sidney Bechet, Reference Back, Days, If My Darling

Poets mentioned:

Seamus Heaney, John Betjeman, Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot Selected Poems (Prufrock, The Wasteland, Rhapsody on a Windy Night)

When You Are Levitated by Daniel Seifert

Anthony Thwaite- Collected Poems

Archie Burnett- Complete Poems

James Booth- Life, Art and Love

Philip Larkin- Jill

The London Magazine

Father Ted https://www.channel4.com/programmes/father-ted

John Robins https://www.johnrobins.com/

NW Rowe Philip Larkin:Art and Self Five (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) Larkin and the Creepy

Music:

Petit Fleur (Sidney Bechet) played by Monty Sunshine

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg and Podmachine

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com

This year we celebrate Larkin’s birthday and the 70 year anniversary of the publication of The Less Deceived with a full reading of Larkin's second collection.

We begin with an introduction to the collection with regular attendees of the podcast, our chair Graham Chesters and trustee Philip Pullen, and we reflect on some of the history of the publication of The Less Deceived.

Thank you to all the people that have helped produce this podcast.

A special thank you to our chair Rosie Millard, who was of enormous help with making the recording of Sir Tom Courtenay reading Church Going. 

Readers:

Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album Philip Pullen

Wedding-Wind Lynn Harrison

Places, Loved Ones Julia Munrow

Coming Brian Bilston

Reasons for Attendance Daniel Wain

Dry Point Michael Egan

Next, Please Dr Andrew Palmer

Going Greg Sestero

Wants Joe Malago

Maiden Name Mary Mccollum

Born Yesterday Cate Blanchett

Whatever Happened? Melissa Dennison

No Road Hannah Sullivan

Wires David Biespiel

Church Going Sir Tom Courtenay

Age Dr Jane Bluett

Myxomatosis Daniel Vince

Toads Justine Gaubert

Poetry of Departures Prof Douglas Bell

Triple Time Jacqueline Baron

Spring Cate Blanchett

Deceptions Hannah Sullivan

I Remember, I Remember Brian Bilston

Absences Sinead Morrissey

Latest Face Gerry Skeens

If, My Darling Alex Howard

Skin Marco Pirroni

Arrivals, Departures Jeremy Wikeley

At Grass Julian Wild

References:

Early Larkin by James Underwood (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)

Pretending to Be Me by Tom Courtenay (2003) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pretending-Be-Me-Philip-Portrait/dp/1405500824

Jean Hartley- Philip Larkin, The Marvell Press and Me (Faber, 2011)

Philip Larkin, Life, Art and Love by James Booth (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014)

TS Eliot- The Four Quartets (Faber, 1941)

On First Looking into Larkin’s The Less Deceived A T Tolley 2 The paper first delivered at the 2003 Conference https://philiplarkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/About-Larkin-18.pdf

The background to the article in the Beverlonian that Graham refers to is referenced in Philip Pullen’s  piece in About Larkin 45 about the Beverley walk

https://philiplarkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/About-Larkin-45.pdf

https://rosiemillard.substack.com/p/what-will-survive-of-us

Music:

 Home Cooking by Eddie Condon and his Orchestra from the Larkin’s Jazz box set, 2010  https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jul/22/various-artists-larkins-jazz-review

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood, Simon Galloway and Gavin Hogg

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com 

My guest today is Ian Kerry who is a photographer and Hull enthusiast. And today’s episode is a new direction for me as I take the microphone outside and travel 70 miles up the road from Sheffield to the Hessle Foreshore, sitting on a picnic bench taking in the view of the Humber Bridge. Ian, Gavin and I talk about the construction of the bridge and the effect of the bridge’s arrival on the local community and the changes to the landscape and human relationships that the bridge brought about. We read a selection of Larkin’s poems and prose and explore what the bridge and the wider Holderness area meant to Larkin.  You will hear some ambient noises in the background- the wind, people walking past, the occasional car and seagull- I hope it helps to set the scene rather than presents a distraction!

We also hear PLS member Chris Sewart, reading Bridge for the Living in full. This was recorded on the other side of the river in Barton Upon Humber, with the south pillars of the bridge just behind us. Thank you Chris for taking the time to record this for us.

Larkin poems discussed:

Here, The Whitsun Weddings, Bridge for the Living, High Windows, Aubade, The Building, Friday Night in the Royal Station Hotel, Absences

Other references:

Ian’s English teacher- Kate Tordoff

A Rumoured City https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rumoured-City-New-Poets-Hull/dp/090642741X

Wizard of Oz (1939 dir Victor Fleming)

Monitor, Down Cemetery Road with Philip Larkin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coe11pgoj8E

Alex Howard https://alexhoward.org/about/

https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/35859

Joe Riley https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/joe-riley-presents-the-whitsun-weddings/id1486735740?i=1000664101367

Sketch Poetry podcast; https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ubm0zfLmjrOqVqMWulgf0

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jun/24/hull-inspires-poets What fresh Hull is this?

Philip Larkin's east Yorkshire home town has been called the most poetic city in England. Which town exercises – or defeats – your muse? By John Keenan

Songs for Humberside by Christopher Rowe and Ian Clark

https://www.discogs.com/release/3734583-Christopher-Rowe-Ian-Clark-Songs-For-Humberside?srsltid=AfmBOorFZyFqtjKQJDPeTX6e7CYglsETWEwiawNbWL4HNZWYIDbVignN

Bridging the Humber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepcHKLWgjs&t=1366s

Almost Instinct, Almost True booking link https://www.eventbrite.com/e/almost-instinct-almost-true-tickets-1334343379969?aff=oddtdtcreator

Music: Lazy River (Louis Armstrong) played by Sidney Bechet

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com

Our guest today is writer  Ralph Dartford who works for the National Literacy Trust and is the poetry editor of literary journal Northern Gravy.   Ralph kindly made the journey from Bradford to the Lockwood residence in Sheffield, and we settled down in my living room with mugs of tea and a plate of biscuits, surrounded by books and looked down upon by at least three pictures of Larkin.

 Ralph also co-organises the fantastic Louder Than Words festival that takes place in Manchester every autumn, and is a celebration of writing about music. They gather together amazing writers, broadcasters and musicians to discuss, explore and debate all things music and music industry related.  I hope we will continue to see Ralph at more PLS events.

Larkin poems mentioned:

The Whitsun Weddings, Dockery and Son, Mr Bleaney, For Sidney Bechet, High Windows, Cut Grass, To The Sea, MCMXIV, Here, Broadcast

All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961-1971 (1985) by Philip Larkin

The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse - ed.  Philip Larkin (1973) 

I am happy to see Mr. Larkin's taste in poetry and my own are in agreement ... I congratulate him most warmly on his achievement. - W. H. Auden, The Guardian

Poets/writers/musicians mentioned by Ralph

Kae Tempest, Joelle Taylor, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Vicky Foster, Steve Ely, Chris Jones, Ian Parks, John Betjeman, John Cooper Clarke, John Hegley, Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy, Michael Stewart, Blake Morrison, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Sidney Bechet, Alan Bennett, Stewart Lee, David Quantick, Ray Davis, Blur,  Van Morrison,  Hang Clouds, Evelyn Glennie, Kingsley Amis, Andrea Dunbar, Helen Mort

Other references:

Adlestrop (1914) by Edward Thomas https://www.edwardthomaspoetryplaces.com/post/adlestrop

Arthur Scargill:  “Arthur Scargill, the miners’ leader and socialist, once told The Sunday Times, ‘My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words.” Martin H. Manser, The Penguin Writer's Manual

Bob Monkhouse https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/dec/30/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

Longbarrow Press https://longbarrowpress.com/

Valley Press https://www.valleypressuk.com/

Kes (1968) by Barry Hines

Ralph is Poetry Editor for Northern Gravy https://northerngravy.com/

Ralph reads Geese and England’s Dreaming from House Anthems  https://www.valleypressuk.com/shop/p/house-anthems

Gareth Southgate https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57816651 

Simon Armitage Larkin Revisited Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0019yy2

Nick Cave- Honorary Vice President for the Philip Larkin Society- Desert Island Discs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027cgl

Lyn’s English teacher 1982-1989 https://petercochran.wordpress.com/remembering-peter/

The Ted Hughes Network https://research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/tedhughes/

James Underwood https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-larkin-9781350197121/

Albums mentioned:

OK Computer (1997) by Radiohead , Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and The White Album (1968) by The Beatles, Park Life (1994) by Blur

Summertime in England by Van Morrison https://www.vice.com/en/article/summertime-in-england-a-monologue-on-van-morrison/

Events:

https://louderthanwordsfest.com/

"My Friend Monica": Remembering Philip Larkin's Partner Monica JonesSat 22 Mar 2025 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Ken Edwards Lecture Theatre 2, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/literaryleicester/1538331

A celebration marking 70 years of Philip Larkin's 'The Less Deceived'

For World Poetry Day

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-celebration-marking-70-years-of-philip-larkins-the-less-deceived-tickets-1235639173029?aff=oddtdtcreator

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com

'It was not easy to find a poet in the United States in my reading,who wrote with the clarity and intelligence that Larkin possessed. I found him to be full of surprises..’

My guest today is writer David Biespiel who was born in Texas and who is now Poet in residence at Oregan state university. He has written for numerous publications and reviewed poetry for the Washington Post and the New York Times. He has taught creative writing at university across the US., has won many awards and published several books of his own poetry. In preparation for talking to David, he recommended that I have a look at his book A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry, published in 2015, which is a collection of his pithy and fascinating articles on poets and poetry.

‘I love that they are slender, I love that they are pocket sized, the whole texture of them- the Faber books.’

Larkin poems mentioned:

Church Going, This Be The Verse, I Remember, I Remember, Dockery and Son, Talking In Bed, Sad Steps, Friday Night In the Royal Station Hotel, Broadcast, An Arundel Tomb, The Mower

Poets:

John Ashberry, Walt Whitman, TS Eliot, Thom Gunn, Keats, Chaucer, Donne, Elizabeth Bishop, Herbert, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, William Stafford, 

Henry Allen

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/06/03/philip-larkins-everyday-poetry/1a53b1df-d319-43fc-9249-af52238ced60/

The Paris Review, Archie Burnett, Martin Amis and Anthony Thwaite collections, US/UK poetry, railway journeys, rhyme schemes, literary tours of UK/Italy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-High-Whistle-David-Biespiel/dp/1938308107
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”  William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1950)

For more about Larkin's Coventry, please watch: Philip Pullen's fantastic 2022 talk at the PLS AGM in Coventry at Larkin's school King Henry VII School.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDOqZ4N_fUk&t=3106s

My guest today is Rishi Dastidar who is a poet and editor based in London. Rishi discusses his own particular view of Larkin’s portrayal of Englishness in both his letters and his poetry, Larkin’s contemporaries such as TS Eliot and Alan Bennett, and the vibrant role poetry plays in the UK’s cultural landscape. 

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times, The Guardian and BBC and more. He is a fellow of The Complete Works, and a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine. A poem from his debut collection Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018, and his second collection, Saffron Jack, was published in the UK by Nine Arches Press in 2020. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He is the chair of the board of trustees for Wasafari Magazine.

Larkin poems discussed:

Poetry of Departures, Friday Night In the Royal Station Hotel, Afternoons, The Building, The Whitsun Weddings, Toads, Waiting for Breakfast

Other references:

Kingsley Amis, Alan Bennett, Ezra Pound

The Poetry Review, The New Yorker, 

The Delinquent https://delinquentmagazine.bigcartel.com/, 

Smiths Knoll magazine (https://poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/index190a.html?id=17), 

The Faber Academy https://faberacademy.com/

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufock by TS Eliot (1915)

Wild God by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2024 PIAS Recordings)

Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons https://tomhirons.com/poetry/sometimes-a-wild-god (2017)

Neptune's Projects  by Rishi Dastidur (2023)

 https://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/neptune-s-projects

Time by Pink Floyd ‘hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’ from The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

George Best, footballer https://nostalgiacentral.com/pop-culture/people/george-best/

UK films/radio of the 1950s/60s:Passport to Pimlico, Whiskey Galore, The Goons, Kind Hearts and Coronets

Music:

Lazy River by Sidney Bechet

Time by Pink Floyd

Theme music:

The Horns of the Morning by Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band

https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg

Please email Lyn at ⁠[email protected] ⁠ with any questions or comments

PLS Membership, events, merchandise and information: philiplarkin.com

Reading Larkin’s poetry

Eddie Dawes - The Trees (Aug 2022)   

Graham Chesters- The First Thing (Aug 2021) 

David Quantick - Days (Aug 22)

Imtiaz Dharker - Broadcast (Aug 22)

Martin Jennings - High Windows (Aug 24) Nominated by Graham Chesters

Hans Rutten introducing and reading An April Sunday Brings the Snow in English and Dutch  (Aug 21)

Richard Johnson- Sad Steps (Aug 21)

Sally Button- To The Sea (Aug 21)

Joe Riley - Church Going (Aug 24)

Devon Allison- Cut Grass (Aug 24) Nominated by Chris Sewart

Andrew Motion- The Old Fools (Aug 2024)

Philip Pullen- Show Saturday (March 21)

Celebrating Larkin’s Contemporaries

Triona Adams reads the opening paragraph of Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women (April 22)

Zachary Leader with Julian Henry on the writing of Lucky Jim (nominated by Daniel Vince) (April 21)

Ann Thwaite reads Philip Larkin in New Orleans by Anthony Thwaite (May 24)

Enjoying Larkin Conversation

James Booth and Betty Mackereth- Just what did Betty make of Larkin’s poems? (June 24) (Nominated by Sally Button)

John Robins and Robin Allender- Captain Beefheart: Larkin fan. (March 22)

Rachael Galletly and Lyn Lockwood-  A house full of Larkin (May 22)

Chris Sewart and Phil Pullen- Larkin and The White Album (Nov 23)

Rosie Millard and Lyn Lockwood - The wonders of Solar (Feb 24)

Music:

Monty Sunshine- Petit Fleur

Wes Finch and the Mechanicals Band - The Horns of the Morning and The Trees

Produced by Simon Galloway, Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg.